Offsite Search Engine Optimization
Many of the factors which are associated with a website’s ranking in search engine listings are not features built into the site, but are external to the website. They are a result of the way in which the website is hosted, developed and maintained, and their importance is often overlooked by novice website developers.
Time is one aspect of a website’s development history that cannot be faked, or made to look more impressive than it is. When a website is created and submitted to search engines, it will be indexed by them and this information will be stored in a database. Over a period of time, the search engine spidering software will re-visit the website, and note any changes on the site such as additional pages and changes to page content. Where a website has a period of initial change and then becomes stagnant, the search engine will assume that the value of the site in search results has fallen, and it will be demoted in listings. Where a website shows evidence of continued steady growth and development, the website will be promoted as one whose content is up to date and more valuable. For this reason, you should not expect your website to achieve a high ranking position quickly. Search engines want to see how it performs first. With all other factors being equal, a website which has been live and steadily maintained for five years will always feature higher in the search engine rankings than one which has been live for five days.
It is reasonable to assume that a website which is important will have lots of other sites linking to it. Search engines therefore see the number of links to a site as being an indicator of its importance. Incoming links from other important sites are even more valuable, and as a site developer you should seek to encourage other site owners to link to your site. In practice, one way incoming links like these are difficult to obtain, and so the process of exchanging reciprocal links has become a growth industry. Reciprocal links are good where they come from a site with similar content, the site is itself seen as being important by search engines, and the linking relationships are developed gradually and organically. Reciprocal links which are obtained from sites on a ‘link farm’, and are added in one large quantity, will be seen as suspicious by search engines. This concept of valuing external links is quantified by Google as a site’s Page Rank or PR. The higher the PR value, the more important a website is to the community.
The number of pages a website contains is viewed as a measure of its importance. Pages which have a few hundred words of unique content will be seen to be offering useful information to the web user. Pages which have little content, or are almost identical, will be seen as being less valuable. It is a reasonable assumption by search engines that a site with five thousand unique pages will contain more information than a website with five pages, three of which are almost identical.
The important thing to remember about a website’s development is that if search engines see continued growth, expanding content, and increasing relationships with other websites, the site will be viewed as being important for viewers. Dedicated and consistent work on a website over a period of time is a much better site promotion plan that a sudden burst of intense activity, followed by years of neglect. Search engines have the same basic values that would be recognized by any stable, conscientious company.