META REFRESH SEO Concerns

When using a META REFRESH tag, check to make sure it is set to refresh after 30 seconds.
[meta equiv="refresh" content="30; URL=http://www.mysite.com"]

Most popular search engines view pages that refresh in under 30 seconds as spam. It is suggested that you use JavaScript redirect tags, if you need a faster page refresh rate.

Example:

1 - Paste this code into the HEAD of the HTML code on your page. Change the 3000 to a number you prefer. Each 1000 represents 1 second wait time.



2 - Code an onLoad event handler using Javascripy and place inside the documents BODY tag, such that the JavaScript code is run when the page loads.
[body onload="redirect()"]

SEO Expert knows When to Wait

There will be times where you make several changes simultaneously to a page on your site. Then, after Google crawls your page changes, there is a brief period where your site appears to rise or drop noticeably in rank. I notice it typically occurs within 48-72 hours of a spidering for fairly static sites (getting crawled by Google an average of every 15-30 days). If it rose up 2 or 3 slots, you may be celebrating prematurely, and if it dropped 3 or 4 slots you may start to panic.

My suggestion is - don't react and certainly do not make any changes to your page for at least 3-5 days. Only then, after a few days pass and your page again finds it natural spot on the page, should you react.

If it had dropped significantly, say more than 3 positions, it usually returns to about its normal ranking, if it rose quickly- the gain seems to be corrected.

Unfortunately, I usually like to be able to explain "Why did my page rank lower on Google today?" with some sort of glamorous mathematical hypothesis... and I suppose if I were an advanced mathematician I could put forth such an algorithm.

But suffice it to say, so long as you followed generally acceptable Google prinicples for SEO, just know that many SEO Experts have seen and documented this peculiar behavior in the ranking engine.

For those interested, here is Google's official stance on SEO.

http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35291


Joe is a self proclaimed SEO Expert in New York.

SEO Expert Tip : META Description Tag is Important

Use the META description tag to feed major search engines with the text you would like to have appear in the natural results listing under the title. Be sure to be highly descriptive when using this tag. Load.. but do not Overload the tage with desired keywords for the item on the page.

For example:

WRONG WAY

meta name="DESCRIPTION" content="At Acme Inc, we pride ourselves on selling widgets of all shapes and sizes. We are one of the largest suppliers in the country."

RIGHT WAY (On the edge of Overloaded - but NOT quite)

meta name="DESCRIPTION" content="Widgets of all shapes and sizes are our specialty at Acme, Inc. Big Widgets, Small Widgets, and even the occaisonal Giant Widget. It's no surprise we are the countries largest manufacturer and supplier of Widgets."

For more great SEO Tactics, a more comprehensive SEO Blog, and an SEO Podcast visit my website.

Joe Beccalori is an SEO Expert in New York, NY.

Good Directory of SEO Links and Blogs

Here is an interesting Site I found that lists hundreds of SEO Resources, Blogs, and other reference points on the web. Wheter you are an SEO Expert or just a beginner, you may find some of these useful for attaining Expert Level SEO skills.


seo directory quality selection of seo related resources.

SEO Mythbusters

SEO Joost de Valk, in a recent study, decided to perform a series of isolation tests on several pervading myths. Do these Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategies hold any real weight? I've been looking into some isolation tests on these myself, so this initial feedback is helpful. I've inquired for more details of the scientific study on his post. Let's see if we get the test details in true Mythbuster's fashion.

Here is a synopsis of his findings:

1. If you use Google Analytics on your website, Google will automatically index that web site. (Variation of this is that Google will somehow give preferential treatment) Busted

2. Google auto-indexes or give preferential ranking to those who use Google Adwords and or Adsense Busted

3. Google indexes a page that can only be reached through nofollow links. Busted

5. Google indexes a page that is excluded by robots.txt. Plausible

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Strategies

After 13 years in the industry, I have focused on nothing but SEO for almost 6 months now. With many years experience behind me -this recent and complete immersion has lifted me to all new results. I execute SEO Strategies primarily of a White Hat SEO standard. My main forum for teaching SEO, and sharing SEO Tactical Approaches will be here. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Strategy from Joe Beccalori and will utilize a blog, newsletter, and upcoming podcast on the topic.

Prevent DMOZ and Yahoo Directory Title Descriptions

Since most search engines treat links from DMOZ and Yahoo Directory as 'highly trusted' sometimes Google, Yahoo or MSN (Live Search) may actually pull titles and descriptions from DMOZ or Yahoo Directory, instead of from page content or META descriptions.

If ever your website is displaying a title or description coming from DMOZ in the search results, you can tell the search engines to not display the data from DMOZ by using the NOODP tag.

 meta name="”robots”" content="”NOODP”" 

Since this is a meta tag, this is place appropriately within the tag.

If ever your website is displaying a title or description coming from the Yahoo Directory in the search results, you can tell the search engines to not display the data from Yahoo Directory by using the NOYDIR tag.

 meta name="”robots”" content="”NOYDIR”"