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boots are my religion
Join Date: Nov 2005
Location: Heart of europe
Posts: 21,765
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Avoid:
• writing generic anchor text like "page", "article", or "click here"
• using text that is off-topic or has no relation to the content of the page linked to
• using the page's URL as the anchor text in most cases (although there are
certainly legitimate uses of this, such as promoting or referencing a new
website's address)
Google's Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide, Version 1.1, published 13 November 2008
• Write concise text - Aim for short but descriptive text—usually a few words or a short
phrase.
Avoid:
• writing long anchor text, such as a lengthy sentence or short paragraph of text
• Format links so they're easy to spot - Make it easy for users to distinguish between
regular text and the anchor text of your links. Your content becomes less useful if users
miss the links or accidentally click them.
Avoid:
• using CSS or text styling that make links look just like regular text
• Think about anchor text for internal links too - You may usually think about linking in
terms of pointing to outside websites, but paying more attention to the anchor text used for
internal links can help users and Google navigate your site better.
Avoid:
• using excessively keyword-filled or lengthy anchor text just for search engines
• creating unnecessary links that don't help with the user's navigation of the site
Use heading tags appropriately
Heading tags (not to be confused with the <head> HTML tag or HTTP headers) are used to present
structure on the page to users. There are six sizes of heading tags, beginning with <h1>, the most
important, and ending with <h6>, the least important.
On a page containing a news story, we might put the name of our site into an <h1> tag and the
topic of the story into an <h2> tag
Since heading tags typically make text contained in them larger than normal text on the page, this is a
visual cue to users that this text is important and could help them understand something about the
type of content underneath the heading text. Multiple heading sizes used in order create a hierarchical
structure for your content, making it easier for users to navigate through your document.
Google's Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide, Version 1.1, published 13 November 2008
Good practices for heading tags
• Imagine you're writing an outline - Similar to writing an outline for a large paper, put some
thought into what the main points and sub-points of the content on the page will be and
decide where to use heading tags appropriately.
Avoid:
• placing text in heading tags that wouldn't be helpful in defining the structure of
the page
• using heading tags where other tags like <em> and <strong> may be more
appropriate
• erratically moving from one heading tag size to another
• Use headings sparingly across the page - Use heading tags where it makes sense. Too
many heading tags on a page can make it hard for users to scan the content and determine
where one topic ends and another begins.
Avoid:
• excessively using heading tags throughout the page
• putting all of the page's text into a heading tag
• using heading tags only for styling text and not presenting structure
Optimize your use of images
Images may seem like a straightforward component of your site, but you can optimize your use of
them. All images can have a distinct filename and "alt" attribute, both of which you should take
advantage of.
The "alt" attribute allows you to specify alternative text for the image if it cannot be displayed for some
reason.
Our alt text here is a brief but accurate description of the image
Why use this attribute? If a user is viewing your site on a browser that doesn't support images, or is
using alternative technologies, such as a screen reader, the contents of the alt attribute provide
information about the picture.
Google's Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide, Version 1.1, published 13 November 2008
Our image wasn't displayed to the user for some reason, but at least the alt text was
Another reason is that if you're using an image as a link, the alt text for that image will be treated
similarly to the anchor text of a text link. However, we don't recommend using too many images for
links in your site's navigation when text links could serve the same purpose. Lastly, optimizing your
image filenames and alt text makes it easier for image search projects like Google Image Search to
better understand your images.
Good practices for images
• Use brief, but descriptive filenames and alt text - Like many of the other parts of the page
targeted for optimization, filenames and alt text (for ASCII languages) are best when they're
short, but descriptive.
Avoid:
• using generic filenames like "image1.jpg", "pic.gif", "1.jpg" when possible
(some sites with thousands of images might consider automating the naming of
images)
• writing extremely lengthy filenames
• stuffing keywords into alt text or copying and pasting entire sentences
• Supply alt text when using images as links - If you do decide to use an image as a link,
filling out its alt text helps Google understand more about the page you're linking to. Imagine
that you're writing anchor text for a text link.
Avoid:
• writing excessively long alt text that would be considered spammy
• using only image links for your site's navigation
• Store images in a directory of their own - Instead of having image files spread out in
numerous directories and subdirectories across your domain, consider consolidating your
images into a single directory (e.g. brandonsbaseballcards.com/images/). This simplifies the
path to your images.
Google's Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide, Version 1.1, published 13 November 2008
• Use commonly supported filetypes - Most browsers support JPEG, GIF, PNG, and BMP
image formats. It's also a good idea to have the extension of your filename match with the
filetype.
Make effective use of robots.txt
A "robots.txt" file tells search engines whether they can access and therefore crawl parts of your
site. This file, which must be named "robots.txt", is placed in the root directory of your site.
The address of our robots.txt file
All compliant search engine bots (denoted by the wildcard * symbol) shouldn't access and
crawl the content under /images/ or any URL whose path begins with /search
You may not want certain pages of your site crawled because they might not be useful to users if
found in a search engine's search results. If you do want to prevent search engines from crawling
your pages, Google Webmaster Tools has a friendly robots.txt generator to help you create this file.
Note that if your site uses subdomains and you wish to have certain pages not crawled on a particular
subdomain, you'll have to create a separate robots.txt file for that subdomain. For more information
on robots.txt, we suggest this Webmaster Help Center guide on using robots.txt files.
There are a handful of other ways to prevent content appearing in search results, such as adding
"NOINDEX" to your robots meta tag, using .htaccess to password protect directories, and using
Google Webmaster Tools to remove content that has already been crawled. Google engineer Matt
Cutts walks through the caveats of each URL blocking method in a helpful video.
Good practices for robots.txt
• Use more secure methods for sensitive content - You shouldn't feel comfortable using
robots.txt to block sensitive or confidential material. One reason is that search engines could
still reference the URLs you block (showing just the URL, no title or snippet) if there happen
to be links to those URLs somewhere on the Internet (like referrer logs). Also, non-compliant
or rogue search engines that don't acknowledge the Robots Exclusion Standard could
disobey the instructions of your robots.txt. Finally, a curious user could examine the
directories or subdirectories in your robots.txt file and guess the URL of the content that you
Google's Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide, Version 1.1, published 13 November 2008
don't want seen. Encrypting the content or password-protecting it with .htaccess are more
secure alternatives.
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