When interesting SEO questions bounce our way, we post answers here! We weigh in on the controversy over Etsy adding text at the front of the crafter's HTML Title. http://www.yourseoplan.com/experts-etsy-google-meta-ranks.html http://www.yourseoplan.com/experts-etsy-google-meta-ranks.html We've used Google's Custom Search Engine tool to build a search engine that only includes SEO sites that we've deemed trustworthy! Give it a try and let us know what you think. http://www.yourseoplan.com/trustworthy-seo-search.html http://www.yourseoplan.com/trustworthy-seo-search.html Rather than selecting a short list of 10 or so keywords, some sites work better with a large number of target keywords. http://www.yourseoplan.com/experts-optimize-long-tail.html http://www.yourseoplan.com/experts-optimize-long-tail.html This is a common problem, because so many websites point links from their footer or global navigation to their privacy & legal pages. http://www.yourseoplan.com/experts-google-ranking-privacy-page.html http://www.yourseoplan.com/experts-google-ranking-privacy-page.html We've updated this article with the latest on Google Profiles, and their importance in the quest for a great Google result! http://www.yourseoplan.com/i-googled-myself.html http://www.yourseoplan.com/i-googled-myself.html Because we work with clients on optimizing largely- or all-Flash websites, we want to be sure that we fully understand what Google will and won't index. So, we formed online experiments, with the goal of answering five burning questions about Google's Flash indexing capabilities. In this article: What We Learned! http://www.yourseoplan.com/google-indexes-flash-experiment-results.html http://www.yourseoplan.com/google-indexes-flash-experiment-results.html Two possible explanations for bad-looking Google listings, and our advice for solving the problem. http://www.yourseoplan.com/experts-improve-titles.html http://www.yourseoplan.com/experts-improve-titles.html We've updated our handy search shortcuts page. Take a look... http://www.yourseoplan.com/search-shortcuts.html http://www.yourseoplan.com/search-shortcuts.html Looking for a tool to tell you the total number of pages on your site? So are we! Here's our advice... http://www.yourseoplan.com/experts-count-pages.html http://www.yourseoplan.com/experts-count-pages.html We discuss the July 1 announcement and our recommended changes to Flash optimization strategy... http://www.yourseoplan.com/google-flash.html http://www.yourseoplan.com/google-flash.html We discuss the July 1 announcement and our recommended changes to Flash optimization strategy... http://www.yourseoplan.com/website-redesign-seo.html http://www.yourseoplan.com/website-redesign-seo.html A website redesign is a time for celebration! But if you recently redesigned your website without thinking about the effect on its search engine presence, you may be in for a rude awakening. Follow a few simple guidelines to be sure that your fabulous new site isn't going incognito... http://www.yourseoplan.com/website-redesign-seo.html http://www.yourseoplan.com/website-redesign-seo.html We've updated our SEO Blogs and Tools page. Find our fave SEO links here... http://www.yourseoplan.com/seo-blogs-tools.html http://www.yourseoplan.com/seo-blogs-tools.html If your "about us" page is outranking your homepage, you might be tempted to exclude it from search engines. Don't! Do this instead... http://www.yourseoplan.com/experts-google-homepage.html http://www.yourseoplan.com/experts-google-homepage.html Our "short form" responses to a reader's questions about on-page optimization. http://www.yourseoplan.com/experts-quick-seo.html http://www.yourseoplan.com/experts-quick-seo.html With the advent of blended search results, local listings are more important than ever. Here's how to get your business listed in the major local search engines. http://www.yourseoplan.com/local-search.html http://www.yourseoplan.com/local-search.html http://www.yourseoplan.com/ask-experts.html There is no major problem with dashes in domain names. The main reason that we chose not to use one, and that we generally advise against dashes, is that hyphenated domains don't pass the 'radio test.' ... http://www.yourseoplan.com/experts-dashes-in-domain.html http://www.yourseoplan.com/experts-dashes-in-domain.html We have updated our SEO Worksheets and Templates for the Second Edition of SEO: An Hour a Day (now shipping from Amazon!). http://www.yourseoplan.com/download-worksheets.html http://www.yourseoplan.com/download-worksheets.html Authoring tools do this automatically, but if you're using a home-grown authoring tool (or none at all), you may need to manually ping the engines. Here's how... http://www.yourseoplan.com/experts-blog-ping.html http://www.yourseoplan.com/experts-blog-ping.html We looked for a reference that listed all three of these URLs, and couldn't find one. So we made it! Also includes link to help with XML Sitemap setup and submittal. http://www.yourseoplan.com/seo-sitemaps.html http://www.yourseoplan.com/seo-sitemaps.html The Robots meta tag has been around for ages, but some new features introduced in 2006 and 2007 have made it a lot more useful than it used to be. Here's the 4-1-1. http://www.yourseoplan.com/meta-tags.html http://www.yourseoplan.com/meta-tags.html We get a lot of questions about do-it-yourself site-creation software such as Site Build It. For the newbie who wants to create a website, there is a lot of information - and misinformation - out there that can make it very hard to choose website creation software... http://www.yourseoplan.com/experts-site-build-it-seo.html http://www.yourseoplan.com/experts-site-build-it-seo.html Many people wonder whether to use a blog format for posting articles online, or whether a classic, tree-structured website navigation is better. We'd look at this situation from a few angles... http://www.yourseoplan.com/experts-articles-publishing.html http://www.yourseoplan.com/experts-articles-publishing.html While our gut is telling us that only a small percentage of searches are performed with quotes, we don't know of any published research on this. Your question made us curious...! http://www.yourseoplan.com/experts-exact-phrase-search.html http://www.yourseoplan.com/experts-exact-phrase-search.html We have updated our blogs and tools page - check it out for helpful SEO links and free online tools! http://www.yourseoplan.com/seo-blogs-tools.html http://www.yourseoplan.com/seo-blogs-tools.html Since search engines recognize a difference between singular and plural words, we think it is best to represent your keyword in both singular and plural forms on your website... http://www.yourseoplan.com/experts-keyword-plural.html http://www.yourseoplan.com/experts-keyword-plural.html Gravity has updated our Very Useful Chart of video search engines - new MRSS submittal links.. http://www.yourseoplan.com/video-search-engines.html http://www.yourseoplan.com/video-search-engines.html A web designer wonders if there's a way to improve upon the "designed by SuchandSuch" links at the bottom of client websites.. http://www.yourseoplan.com/experts-designer-links.html http://www.yourseoplan.com/experts-designer-links.html Search engine marketers love Digg. But Digg hasn’t been giving them a whole lot of love back. Here is some insider advice for dipping your toe into the Digg pool. http://www.yourseoplan.com/diggers-hate-seo.html http://www.yourseoplan.com/diggers-hate-seo.html So you have a successful, popular blog, but it's hosted somewhere in a galaxy far, far away? Should you move it to join forces with your main site, or stick it out in deep cyberspace? Read on to find out... http://www.yourseoplan.com/experts-moving-blog.html http://www.yourseoplan.com/experts-moving-blog.html he Google "link:" command won't show you all of the inbound links to your website. Here are some other approaches... http://www.yourseoplan.com/experts-google-showing-links.html http://www.yourseoplan.com/experts-google-showing-links.html We don't recommend using domain masking (also called pointer domains). Here's why... http://www.yourseoplan.com/experts-domain-masking.html http://www.yourseoplan.com/experts-domain-masking.html As any SEO specialist will tell you, it's never too early to think about the eventual search engine presence of your business. This article covers some basic Do's and Don'ts for choosing a business name with an SEO mindset. http://www.yourseoplan.com/business-name-seo.html http://www.yourseoplan.com/business-name-seo.html A change in your server (which will be a change in your website's IP address) or website hosting service does not need to affect your search engine placement. Just be sure of a few things... http://www.yourseoplan.com/experts-move-server-seo.html http://www.yourseoplan.com/experts-move-server-seo.html Posting non-commercial content won't make you look "weird." Just choose it wisely... http://www.yourseoplan.com/experts-linkbait.html http://www.yourseoplan.com/experts-linkbait.html This new books covers many of the technical aspects of SEO. Could it help you? http://www.yourseoplan.com/book-seo-php.html http://www.yourseoplan.com/book-seo-php.html The short answer is "No." While we advocate W3C validation as a general web development best practice, we are not aware of any direct connection between validation and search engine rankings... http://www.yourseoplan.com/experts-www3c-validation-seo.html http://www.yourseoplan.com/experts-www3c-validation-seo.html Are you giving away secrets when you provide SEO recommendations? We don't think so, here's why. http://www.yourseoplan.com/experts-SEO-secrets.html http://www.yourseoplan.com/experts-SEO-secrets.html Dynamic content used to be a red flag for search engine friendly design, but times have changed. Search engines now include dynamically-generated pages in their indexes, but some particulars of dynamic pages can still be obstacles to getting indexed. http://www.yourseoplan.com/seo-dynamic-sites.html http://www.yourseoplan.com/seo-dynamic-sites.html Should this website owner ditch his web designer if they won't do SEO? We weigh in... http://www.yourseoplan.com/experts-SEO-consultant.html http://www.yourseoplan.com/experts-SEO-consultant.html Not sure how to draw people to watch the videos on your website? Here’s our “right now” primer on video search! http://www.yourseoplan.com/video-search-engines.html http://www.yourseoplan.com/video-search-engines.html It's true that there are penalties for websites building a lot of links in an "unnatural" way in a short time, but ... http://www.yourseoplan.com/experts-google-link-penalty.html http://www.yourseoplan.com/experts-google-link-penalty.html You can combine keyword phrases without sacrificing your audience or your writing... http://www.yourseoplan.com/experts-combine-keywords.html http://www.yourseoplan.com/experts-combine-keywords.html This could be a problem with Google seeing your URLs as unique domains, and indexing them as if they are two separate websites... http://www.yourseoplan.com/experts-duplicate-domains.html http://www.yourseoplan.com/experts-duplicate-domains.html The Keyword Effectiveness Index is only one measurement. Let's talk about some more reliable methods... http://www.yourseoplan.com/experts-wordtracker-kei.html http://www.yourseoplan.com/experts-wordtracker-kei.html There are a couple of ways to think about the value of this technique... http://www.yourseoplan.com/experts-groups-links.html http://www.yourseoplan.com/experts-groups-links.html We generally lean strongly toward a manual process of SEO... http://www.yourseoplan.com/experts-seo-software.html http://www.yourseoplan.com/experts-seo-software.html There are some very good reasons that SEO works for B2B (business-to-business) websites... http://www.yourseoplan.com/experts-B2B-SEO.html http://www.yourseoplan.com/experts-B2B-SEO.html We love the idea of writing articles as part of your SEO link building process. There are several approaches you could take... http://www.yourseoplan.com/experts-build-links-articles.html http://www.yourseoplan.com/experts-build-links-articles.html We do think that PPC clicks take away from organic traffic in the particular case when... http://www.yourseoplan.com/experts-ppc-vs-organic-traffic.html http://www.yourseoplan.com/experts-ppc-vs-organic-traffic.html Technically, yes. But make sure you have the proper perspective... http://www.yourseoplan.com/experts-reciprocal-links-and-pagerank.html http://www.yourseoplan.com/experts-reciprocal-links-and-pagerank.html