SEO-Vault [dot] blogspot [dot] com

Keeping Up with Google's Changes

2006-10-16T16:16:00.000-07:00

With Google having such a leading position in the search engine world and so many webmasters looking to Google for traffic, you might guess that there's a lot of discussion about Google in various places around the Web. And you'd be right! My favorite place for Google news and gossip is Webmaster World (http://www.webmasterworld.com). It's not often that the terms civilized and online forums go together, but they do in this case. Discourse on this site is friendly, informative, and generally flame-free. I have learned a lot from this site.

There are also a few weblogs focused on Google and searching in general:

Google Weblog (http://google.blogspace.com) keeps on top of everything Google, from the newest search syntax to Google's holiday logos (http://www.google.com/holidaylogos.html).
Google Blog (http://www.google.com/googleblog) is the official Google weblog and features announcements, pointers, and behind-the-scenes commentary from the Googleplex.
John Battelle's Searchblog (http://battellemedia.com) covers search in all forms.

What the Googleheads are Reading

2006-10-16T16:05:00.000-07:00

They consider those a worth-it source of information, so why don't we pay them a visit and see what they can offer us :

Aaron Swartz's Google Weblog
Ask.com Blog
Charlene Li's Blog
Dutch Cowboys (Dutch)
Google Guide
Jeremy Zawodny's Blog
John Battelle's Searchblog
Marketing Pilgrim
MSN Search Weblog
Nathan Weinberg's Inside Google
Philipp Lenssen's Google BlogoscopedOJO!Buscador (Spanish)
Marketing Facts (Dutch)
Robert Scoble's Scobleizer
PassingNotes
Rael Dornfest's Raelity Bytes
Pandia Search World
ResearchBuzz
Resource Shelf
Roodlicht (Dutch)
Search Engine Blog
Search Engine Journal
Search Engine Lowdown
Search Engine Roundtable
Search Engine Watch Blog
Search Engine Watch Forums
Slashdot - Google
Slashdot (Japanese)
Traffick
Voelspriet (Dutch)
WebmasterWorld
What's On Tonight (Allen Weiner)
Yahoo Search Blog

I haven't used my Japanese and Dutch in while ;)
But the others are worth taking a look. Some of them might happen to turn you into an addicted return visitor. As they did with me :)

The Mysterious PageRank

2006-10-16T15:40:00.000-07:00

You might hear a lot of people talk about Google's PageRank, bragging about attaining the misty heights of rank 7 or 8 or speaking reverently of sites that have achieved 9 or 10. PageRanks range from (sites that have been penalized or not ranked) to 10 (reserved for only the most popular sites, such as Yahoo! and Google itself).

Google has never provided the entire formula for their PageRank. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that the formula is changing all the time; as millions of people try myriad methods to increase their page ranking, Google has to take these efforts into account and (sometimes) react against them.

Why is PageRank so important? Because Google uses that as one aspect of determining how a given URL will rank among millions of possible search results. But that's only one aspect. The other aspects are determined via Google's ranking algorithm.

The latest trends in SEO show that the PR is not that important lately .. but we should still keep an eye on it...

Google's Importance to Webmasters

2006-10-16T14:38:00.000-07:00

What is Google? .. isn't Google just a simple search engine, a website like any other?

Recently its reach become alooot greater than any other search engine, simple or. Google partners with some of the major players - like AOL for example (there many others but to keep it we will leave you discover those in some of the later posts) They use the Google index results to feed their content hungry customers and visitors. In addition to that there are sooo many websites using the Google API. So when you think about potential visitors from Google search results, your imagination should go way beyond traditional search engine borders.

How Google sees your website has become a really important factor that will determine how well you will rank in the search results and how fast your site will be indexed, everything turns around the "big G" which means that you want to make sure that your site abides by the Google rules or risk not being picked up.

Welcome the Spiders. If you do want generic search traffic you you're going to have to make sure that your site is optimized for Google and ready to be indexed - then - accept the important guests - the spiders. We will discuss those later on.

And if you're concerned that Google should not index some parts of your site, you need to understand the ins and outs of configuring your robots.txt file to reflect your preferences.

To be continued...

BioKey v.1.0 (Keyword suggestions)

2006-10-02T15:31:00.000-07:00

This is not a search engine.
BioKey is not a tool for finding resources on the World Wide Web.
BioKey is a tool incorporates Overture's keyword suggestion tool and Google to reveal active keyword phrases that people use to search. Enter a search term, and BioKey will return about a 100 variations of that search term, of which people have used to search the search engines in the *prior 30 days*. This tool is useful for developing lists of keywords for the search engines, and finding new and/or in-demand niches and keyword phrases.

Try BioKey v.1.0 (Keyword suggestions) absolutely free

Free SEO Tools from SEOChat.com

2006-09-07T08:39:00.000-07:00

The guys at seochat.com have arranged a neat collection of cool free stuff for all of us. All we can say is a big thank you. And here is the list:

Adsense Calculator
Google AdSense affiliates can use this calculator to gain a better
understanding of what affects their earnings by experimenting with
values.

Google AdSense Preview
This preview utility will give you a sense of which ads would be placed on a given page.

Advanced Meta Tag Generator
This tool helps you to add meta tags to your site..

Alexa Rank Comparison Tool
The Alexa Traffic History Graph allows you to create a traffic history graph for any site.

Class C Checker
This Class C Checker tool allows you to find out whether some sites are hosted on the same Class C IP Range.

Code to Text Ratio
This tool will help you discover the percentage of text in a web page (as compared to the combined text and code).

CPM Calculator
This calculator measures the ROI (return on investment) of the CPM (cost per thousand) impressions advertising model.

Domain Age Check
Use this tool to find the age of a domain.

Domain Typo Generator
Enter a domain name into the box, and this tool will generate a list of
suggestions of likely human misspellings and typos for the given domain.

Future PageRank
This tool will query Google's various data centers to check for any changes in PageRank values for a given URL.

Google Dance
This tool will query Google's three main web servers, showing the different statuses during updates. Watch Google Dance.

Keyword Suggestions For Google
The keyword suggestion tool for Google will help you choose relevant and popular terms related to your selected key term.

Multiple Datacenter Google Search
This tool searches your keyword/phrase in different Google data centers.

Google vs Yahoo
This tool will run a search query in Google and Yahoo search engines and then graphically compare the results.

Indexed Pages
This tool will return the total link count for each URL from major
search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN, Alta Vista, and AlltheWeb).

Keyword Cloud
This tool provides a visual representation of keywords used on a website.

Keyword Density
This tool will analyze your chosen URL, and return a table of keyword density values for one-, two-, or three-word key terms.

Keyword Difficulty Check
Use the Keyword Difficulty Check Tool to see how difficult it would be to rank for specific keywords or keyword phrases.

Keyword Optimizer
Enter a list of keywords and this tool will remove any duplicate entries and re-order the list alphabetically.

Multiple Datacenter Keyword Position Check
This tool will help you to find the position of your site in Google for a specific keyword/phrase.

Keyword Typo Generator
Enter a keyword or key term into the box above and this tool will
generate a list of suggestions for likely human misspellings and typos.

Link Popularity
Enter a valid URL, and this tool will query all the major search
engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN, and Teoma) and then return that URL's
total link count for each one.

Link Price Calculator
This tool can help you determine the approximate amount you should be paying per month for a text link.

Meta Analyzer
This tool will analyze a website's meta tags. Analyzing a competitor's
keyword and description meta values is a good way to find ideas for key
terms and more effective copy for your site.

Meta Tag Generator
If you're new to web development and search engine optimization, you
may find this tool useful to ensure that your meta tags are correctly
formed.

Multiple Datacenter Link Popularity Check
This tool will give a back link count for a URL from multiple Google data centers.

Keyword Suggestions For Overture
Simply enter a key term and this tool will query information from the Overture database of searched terms.

Page Size
This tool will help you to determine HTML web page size.

PageRank Lookup
This tool streamlines the process of checking PageRank for your sites.
Enter a list of URLs and it will return the PageRank value for each one.

PageRank Search
Enter your Google search here, and our tool will search Google and display the PageRank next to each resulting answer.

Robots.txt Generator
Use this tool to generate a simple robots.txt file for your website,
which allows you to hide files or directories that you don’t wish to be
spidered.

ROI Calculator
This calculator measures the ROI (return on investment) of a CPC (cost per click) campaign.

Search Engine Keyword Position
This tool checks the search engine result pages of Google, Yahoo, and
MSN to see what position your site holds for a particular keyword
phrase.

Graphical Search Engine Comparison
This tool allows you to perform your own comparisons, and displays the
results visually, making it easy to see both the rankings and
comparative positions of pages in search engine results.

Site Link Analyzer
This tool will analyze a given web page and return a table of data
containing columns of outbound links and their associated anchor text.

Spider Simulator
This tool simulates a search engine spider by displaying the contents
of a web page in exactly the way the spider would see it.

URL Redirect Check
This tool checks for valid HTTP 301 headers.

URL Rewriting
This tool converts dynamic URLs to static URLs. You will need to create an .htaccess file to use this tool.

Welcome

2006-09-07T01:45:00.000-07:00

This is day one of the SEO Vault Blog. I am more than happy to announce the birth of this blog. All the people involved in that project will dedicate their time to present to you with the best resources and information realted to Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Marketing. Thank you for your time! I hope you Enjoy your stay!