I am currently in the process of selecting a web host for my new site. Are there any search engine related issues that I need to be aware of before I select a host?

Jack Bartlett


Answer:

Hi Jack,

There is one primary issue that you need to be concerned about when selecting a web host. Make sure that your web host gives unique Internet Protocol (I.P.) addresses to all the sites that they host. Many web hosts do not give unique I.P. addresses to the sites that they host. Instead, they host multiple domains on the same I.P. address. Now, when you submit your site to a search engine, the spider first obtains the I.P. address of the domain name of your site. It then requests web pages from that I.P. address. Normally, the server in which your site is hosted can detect the domain for which the request has been made, and can serve the correct pages. However, sometimes, if there is either a mis-configuration in the server or in the search engine spider itself, the spider may end up obtaining a page from another domain which has the same I.P. address as your site. This means that instead of being found for the keywords which are important to you, you will be found for the keywords which are applicable to the other site. Hence, when you select a web host, always ensure that they give unique I.P. addresses to all the sites that they host. If it means that you have to pay a bit more for your hosting, the extra cost is worth it.

Of course, you also need to ensure that the web host is reliable and that your site is never inaccessible. This is important both for the search engines as well as your human visitors. If a search engine spider comes to visit your site when it is inaccessible, it is quite likely that it will drop your site from its index. While this will not be a permanent ban on your site (if you re-submit, you will be added again), why take the risk? Also, suppose you submit your site to one of the directories like Yahoo!. When an editor of the directory comes to visit your site and finds that it is inaccessible, you will most certainly not get listed. If you have used Yahoo!'s Business Express submission program, you do get a chance to appeal. However, if your site is down when the editor comes to visit your site again after you have appealed, you will have just wasted the $199 that you have spent submitting to Yahoo!.


QUESTION 2:

Does a link from your page to the search engine (you are submitting to) have any bearing on how you will rank in that specific search engine?

Rich


Answer:

Hi Rich,

No, linking to a search engine will definitely not boost the ranking of your site in that search engine. It would not be logical for one of the major search engines to boost the ranking of a site just because it is linking to that search engine. Think of this from the point of view of the search engines - the search engines are interested in providing relevant results to its users. Just because a site links to a particular search engine, the site does not become more relevant for a particular keyword.

However, something that you can consider doing is to have links in your site to the Open Directory and Yahoo!. This follows from the "bow-tie" theory of link analysis. The bow-tie theory is an extremely complicated topic, and I won't try to explain exactly what it means here. However, in layman's terms, what the bow-tie theory suggests is that in order to rank a site, the search engines will see not only what sites link to you, but also what sites you link to. Under this theory, linking to "important" directories like the Open Directory and Yahoo! can boost your rankings in the search engines.

Now, I haven't yet seen any concrete evidence that linking to the Open Directory and Yahoo! does boost rankings - I am still in the process of testing it. However, since linking to these sites will definitely not harm your rankings, you may consider doing it all the same.

For an explanation of the bow-tie theory, go to http://www.almaden.ibm.com/almaden/webmap_release.html


QUESTION 3:

I was just wondering whether having a keyword composed of two or more words in your meta keywords tag will help for searches performed using either of the keywords. For example let's say the tag looks like this:

<meta name="keywords" content="internet search engine, toronto">

Will this actually help for people searching for only the term 'internet'? or 'search engine'? If so, will it be better to simply make one large keyword "toronto internet search engine" which will provide results for the entire set of terms as well as for each individual term on its own?

Emil Falcon


Answer: Hi Emil,

This actually depends on the individual search engines. Some search engines will ignore the commas and take the individual words in the Meta Keywords tag. Others will recognize the commas and will recognize different keywords by using the commas as separators. On the whole, you are better off separating the keywords by commas. Whenever I write a Meta Keywords tag, I separate the keywords by commas, and that has worked perfectly well for me.

In any case, you should not be too concerned about the Meta Keywords tag. The Meta Keywords tag has almost completely lost its relevance as far as search engine positioning is concerned - it hardly affects the rankings these days. Hence, what is present in the Meta Keywords tag is really not that important. I can play around with the Meta Keywords tag of a page as much as I like, but it won't make any noticeable difference to the ranking of the page. What is far more important is the body content of your site, as well as the link popularity of your site.