SEO: Ranking Factors & Rationale

SEO: Ranking 

Bounce rate, speed and link architecture also determine your success on the SERP. Gone are the days when big concerns could hire a large team of web buzzers and make links using articles and directory submissions. Forums were also in this game but there the admins were more strict so the former two gamed the algorithms no end.  

I worked in an IT concern which was much into gaming the system using my articles they could make cheap copies and get massive links...it worked. But before leaving I told them it will not work in future and it did not. Similarly with directories I could write title and description which was than manipulated by the team and submitted to thousands of directories. Then this too stopped working as I had warned...but they would not listen and the site was sent to the gallows. Anchor repetition also failed. 

Link building still works, directory submission still work, forums still work but in all the cases aesthetics have changed. No spam is tolerated by any search engines. Moreover a large number of metrics have come into picture to index and rank a website on a keyword. 

Quality link building or authoritative links means a great deal of success. if your site gathers natural links nothing like that...here people link your site because they find it useful information or action wise. If your award winning company website is linked with authoritative site offering the awards on that field you have made it. This is an example.

But this will not be the case all the time hence do build links not to game the system but to get referrals. If your site follows the SE guidelines it will not be penalized since referrals lead to web saturation that is essential for websites.  

Many of the metrics are not known by the webmasters and they may never know. But aesthetics will work...always...make the website that delivers good user experience, repeat visitors will stand as testimony.

Why would any one visit a website again and again using a keyword or set of phrases regularly until unless they are finding something useful. Even one time visitor if they stay for a reasonable time and there is an action then the website has scored a point to the search engines. One time visit with good enough time spent on it and or action is there...the purpose is solved in one go.  If you understand this you will also understand the role social media plays in ranking and building an online reputation or authority....that does count.   

By some mechanism search engines are able to make out reputation or authority of the site! Domain age is certainly one of them, hosting period and hosting stability also matters. Social media performance also matters. 

Speed is something which makes a user explore the website, a slow download is a turn off...nobody wants to wait for a site to load. A reasonable good downloading time hence is a must. It need not necessarily be the fastest.

A good architecture means a quick pathway to the targeted page without crazy maneuvers. Hence good link architecture means easy access to important pages and the action page. If you observe the funnel you will discover the pathway that a visitor or visitors take to reach a particular goal. For search engines this would also mean a good directory structure...make use of silos if necessary.  A good site map and well configured robot.txt file all are important.

Contents are foremost as far as good user experience is concerned. Hire a good content writer or be one yourself. Be it website contents, blog contents, article contents, content in user generated sites all matter...  

Contents with videos, infographics and relevant images enhance user experience tremendously. Forget about search engines if your website satisfies the user criteria it will always be the winner. There are many places on Earth that do not spend a penny in advertising but are yet successful, only because of their delivery ...news travels fast.   

A responsive website is mobile friendly which is important since quick search is most of the time taking place on smartphones. Browser compatibility, platform compatibility, content size, readability , optimized graphics and images, contrast between back ground and text, all matter. 

If you can guess all that would matter regarding the user satisfaction inculcate in your design and content without hesitation. If you can be a winner without getting into the mad race of the SERPs you have made it.     

Like reputed libraries which search for a great book by a great author search engines also seek a great website by a great owner.   

Last but least there are no cheap or quick solutions, if you are a cheapster and do not have patient... hang your portal!

Uday offers SEO Services and Website Contents in English. 

He also teaches Internet Marketing in Jabalpur.

Content: pateluday90@hotmail.com

Mobile: 9755089323

URL Parameters & Duplicate Contents

When you interact with a website on the Net a session is set and upon receiving the answer you will see that the returned URL has strings at the end of the absolute URL. These are dynamically generated and also inform you of action taken and these are the URL parameters. They whole set at the end of URL also denotes a session ID.

Actually the parameters are associated with various actions or tasks like tracking, reordering, categorizing, product, filtering etc. They can exhibit a page with content in multiple ways often filtered or sorted out. If you are searching for blue sweaters on an eCommerce site the action will sort out the blue sweaters from other colored ones and show you only the blue ones. In short the date source has been filtered here.   

The parameters are set in the back end process or the admin interface as per the design and desire of the exhibitor. Usually the programmer or developer will decide what dynamic tasks have to be performed for the visitors.  

URL variables start with a question mark. ?

Example

www.example.com/sweaters?size=medium&sort=latest

This is a dynamic URL and more variables can be added using the ampersand (&)

Though the URL variables have a functional approach they can lead to a duplication issue since the search engines take the dynamic urls or urls with variables as separate. Hence same page along with the one's with the parameters is construed as duplicate content and so is the keyword or anchor text associated with it.  

Other complications may arise like the splitting of page rank. The URLs with variables make them  difficult to read, less memorable and less clickable as a consequence.  

Solution?

First you should ask the developer to restrict the use of URL with variables to ones absolutely necessary. 

You can noindex,nofollow the dynamic URLs in the meta.   

You can use the canonical tag to identify the main URL

In the robot.txt disallow the pages with string query ? 

Disallow: /*?* 

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In search console you can use the parameter tool to instruct Google about the URLs with variables on your website and what to do with regarding the crawl and indexing.

Read Google Support on the Parameter Tool

If you find things difficult to comprehend you should use the option Let Google Decide. During the crawl Googlebot takes many aspects in consideration and decides one URL to value from other similar ones. 

Smaller sites should strict to static URL pattern creating sub folders if necessary. For larger eCommerce site using CMS dynamic URLs are required for offering multiple views of the pages. Managing various issues associated with the complex structures are given in the options above. 

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Uday offers Internet Marketing Course in Jabalpur
He also provides SEO Services 
He provides website contents
Contact: pateluday90@hotmail.com
Mob: 9755089323