More Hits

[jjprescott]

Any suggestions on how to get more hits from search engines? I have put in meta keywords and used some "free" sites that say they post your URL, but I think they use the contact to try and sell expensive services. Any suggestions would be welcome. Thanks

 

[Steve Easton]

List the site with www.dmoz.org and then be patient. If / when dmoz picks it up all
other search engines will normally follow.

Also, make sure you have relevant page titles for the pages which it appears you have.
However one thing that I would do, that I always do is have the site name as the first
part of the page title. Such as:
Village Walk Sarasota Realty - For Sale and so forth.

Next:
1. Remove spaces from file names and replace them with underscores _ which will
eliminate %20 showing in the browser address bar like this.
http://villagewalksarasotarealty.com/for sale.htm Spaces in file names which show as
%20 will break links as far as some search engines are concerned. ( and also some
browsers )

2. Create a robots.txt file using notepad and place it in the root of the web. Some
search engines look for the file to ensure they have permission to crawl the site. Here's
a "how to" link:
http://www.searchengineworld.com/robots/robots_tutorial.htm

3. In every page you want "crawled" or indexed, place the following meta tag in the head
section of the page:
<meta NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="index,follow">


--
Steve Easton
Microsoft MVP FrontPage
95isalive
This site is best viewed............
........................with a computer

Any suggestions on how to get more hits from search engines? I have put in meta keywords

and used some "free" sites that say they post your URL, but I think they use the contact
to try and sell expensive services. Any suggestions would be welcome. Thanks

 

[jjprescott]

Next
1. Remove spaces from file names and replace them with underscores _ which wil
eliminate %20 showing in the browser address bar like this
http://villagewalksarasotarealty.com/for sale.htm Spaces in file names which show a
%20 will break links as far as some search engines are concerned. ( and also som
browsers

When I renamed the files, and did a recalculate hyperlinks I lost the link from the link bar. Did I miss something?

 

[jjprescott]

2. Create a robots.txt file using notepad and place it in the root of the web. Som
search engines look for the file to ensure they have permission to crawl the site. Here'
a "how to" link

Again, Steve, I may be dumb, but tell me what the "root of the web" is? I'm feelen kind o' dumb now.

 

[Thomas A. Rowe]

The root of your web is the location where your home page is.

Be careful in how you use a robots.txt file, as it can also provide a roadmap for hackers looking
for content that you don't want the search engines to index.

--
==============================================
Thomas A. Rowe (Microsoft MVP - FrontPage)
WEBMASTER Resources(tm)

FrontPage Resources, WebCircle, MS KB Quick Links, etc.
==============================================

2. Create a robots.txt file using notepad and place it in the root of the web. Some
search engines look for the file to ensure they have permission to crawl the site. Here's
a "how to" link:

Again, Steve, I may be dumb, but tell me what the "root of the web" is? I'm feelen kind o' dumb

now.

 

[Steve Easton]

You shouldn't have lost a link, as FrontPage should have automatically updated any links
to files you changed.

Try changing it back, recalculate, see if it works and then replace the space again.


--
Steve Easton
Microsoft MVP FrontPage
95isalive
This site is best viewed............
........................with a computer

Next:
1. Remove spaces from file names and replace them with underscores _ which will
eliminate %20 showing in the browser address bar like this.
http://villagewalksarasotarealty.com/for sale.htm Spaces in file names which show as
%20 will break links as far as some search engines are concerned. ( and also some
browsers )

When I renamed the files, and did a recalculate hyperlinks I lost the link from the link

bar. Did I miss something?

 

[Steve Easton]

What Thomas means is don't use the Disallow feature such as
Disallow: /cgi-bin/
Disallow: /images/

because anyone can open and read the robots.txt file by simply adding it to the url like
this:
www.mysite.com/robots.txt

--
Steve Easton
Microsoft MVP FrontPage
95isalive
This site is best viewed............
........................with a computer

 

[jjprescott]

You shouldn't have lost a link, as FrontPage should have automatically updated any link
to files you changed

Try changing it back, recalculate, see if it works and then replace the space again

When I changed it back, it worked fine. Now, I'm changing the file name in the folders view of the Web Site. After I change it I get an "update" message.

 

[Steve Easton]

Click yes to the update message.

--
Steve Easton
Microsoft MVP FrontPage
95isalive
This site is best viewed............
........................with a computer

You shouldn't have lost a link, as FrontPage should have automatically updated any links
to files you changed.

Try changing it back, recalculate, see if it works and then replace the space again.

When I changed it back, it worked fine. Now, I'm changing the file name in the folders

view of the Web Site. After I change it I get an "update" message.

 

[Andrew Murray]

2. Create a robots.txt file using notepad and place it in the root of the web. Some
search engines look for the file to ensure they have permission to crawl the site. Here's
a "how to" link:

Again, Steve, I may be dumb, but tell me what the "root of the web" is? I'm

feelen kind o' dumb now.

Your default directory on your web server known as the "root directory" from MS
DOS Days as in (using a PC as an exampe C:\ is the root directory), so you root
directory on a web server is your htdocs, or www or public_html folder.

 

[David Baxter]

That's a more complex question than you might think and consequently has
a more complex answer than can be supplied in one post. There are some
differences among search engines in how they rank a page but at this
point Google is still king and you should be starting there. The three
most important factors are:

1. the <TITLE> tag - don't waste this: make sure it includes your best
keywords - if you insist on having your company name in the title tag
(which is sometimes a good idea), place it at the end not the beginning
of the title tag

2. your home page needs content/text that the spiders can digest for
indexing: avoid frames, flash, and javascript links as much as you can
(spiders are poor at reading javascript); make sure this page has text
containing important key PHRASES (single word searching is no longer
what most people do - try to optimize for 2-, 3-, and 4-word phrases and
if your site is at all "local" include the name of the city or general
location; create a site map called sitemap.htm - place a text link at
the bottom of your home page to sitemap.htm and on the sitemap.htm page
place text links to all of the important pages on your website (maximum
100 links)

3. submit to directories - and NOT just DMOZ which is hit-and-miss at
best; try to find similar or relevant pages and get them to link to your
site

Then get yourself prepared for some reading - the best place is forums
like www.webmasterworld.com , www.cre8asite.com ,
www.bandofgonzos.com - read the search engine threads and ask for a
site review.

Any suggestions on how to get more hits from search engines? I have

put in meta keywords and used some "free" sites that say they post your
URL, but I think they use the contact to try and sell expensive
services. Any suggestions would be welcome. Thanks