ComCorp, Inc. Strikes Strategic Partnership with SEOENG LLC
Posted on 22. Oct, 2008 by ComCorp in ComCorp, Search Engine Optimization
ComCorp.com, a full-service Internet marketing agency, has teamed up with the world’s first and only Search Engine Optimization Engine, SEOENG(TM). This strategic partnership affords ComCorp the opportunity to extend free SEO analysis to its clients.
October 22, 2008 — Two of the world’s leaders in search engine optimization have joined
forces to bring Web site owners unparalleled SEO analysis capabilities. ComCorp, Inc., one of the world’s largest and most experienced search engine optimization (SEO), search engine marketing (SEM), pay-for-performance marketing and e-commerce consulting firms, has just struck a strategic partnership with SEOENG LLC. Short for “Search Engine Optimization Engine,” SEOENG(TM) is the world’s first and only transparent Search Engine of its kind. The alliance between these two search engine optimization behemoths positions ComCorp to provide its clients with instantaneous feedback on how they can improve their Web site ranking for keyword searches. Web site owners who would like a free analysis of their search engine placement can test drive the SEOENG Search Engine online at http://www.comcorp.com/search-engine-optimization.html.
The addition of SEOENG technology to ComCorp’s suite of offerings enables the company’s clients to maximize their site’s search engine visibility with top placement and positioning. How does SEOENG accomplish this much sought-after feat? It is a Search Engine Optimization Engine that crawls the Web site address that is entered into its system. The Search Engine then calculates and displays critical errors, shows exactly where they are located and provides suggestions on how to fix them. Within seconds, it discerns how the major search engines look at a Web site and determines that site’s search engine ranking. Such a process would take a full-service Internet marketing firm hundreds of hours to accomplish on its own.
“With over 25 billion Google-indexed Web pages (according to a University of Pennsylvania study titled ‘Google, Web Crawling and Distributed Synchronization’) competing for the number one search ranking – and billions of others not even listed in the first five pages of the search engines, one’s chances of rising to the top results of their most wanted search term with no search optimization is about as likely as winning the lottery. A search engine optimization professional is essential in one’s success on the Internet,” explains Tammy Camp, ComCorp’s principal. “In the meantime, an SEO Engine like SEOENG can provide Web site owners with instantaneous feedback they, or search engine optimization specialists like those at ComCorp, can implement to improve their rankings.”
Having successfully leveraged search engine marketing campaigns for nearly a decade, ComCorp takes its strategic partnerships seriously. As a tool that empowers its users with on-demand crawling, targeted error location, superior accuracy and SEO results, link flow preservation, search engine navigation and personalization, the company couldn’t pass up the opportunity to ally itself with SEOENG.
For more information on ComCorp’s partnership with SEOENG, contact Tammy Camp at +1 404 496-4885. To receive a complimentary Web site ranking analysis, visit the search engine optimization search bar online at http://www.comcorp.com/search-engine-optimization.html.
About ComCorp:
Founded in 2004, ComCorp, Inc., a privately held company based in Delray Beach, Fla., is one of the world’s largest and most experienced search engine optimization (SEO), search engine marketing (SEM), pay-for-performance marketing and e-commerce consulting firms. The company consistently increases qualified Web site traffic for hundreds of Fortune 1000 companies and small businesses worldwide. As a result, ComCorp sustains exceptionally high client-retention rates. The company is led by a team of Google
Adwords Qualified Professionals, Yahoo! Search Ambassadors, SEMPO members and other highly experienced Internet marketing professionals. ComCorp serves clients throughout the United States, Europe, Asia, Australia, Africa and the Middle East.
ComCorp, Inc. Strikes Strategic Partnership with SEOENG, Yahoo! News – ComCorp, Inc. Strikes Strategic Partnership with SEOENG or at PR Web
Optimization Tips and Tricks
Posted on 22. Jun, 2008 by ComCorp in Search Engine Optimization
Search engine optimization has become the prime force in the whole industry of internet marketing. While their are other factors in growing your business, it certainly helps to have an understanding of some of the tips and tricks to make your web site more visible to search engines. These tips fall into four main areas: Structure, content, keywords and Meta tags, and links
WEBSITE STRUCTURE
This refers to the way your web site is arranged and is the basis of everything else related to SEO. In order to make your web site clean and lean eliminate things such as re-directs, frames, image maps, flash and programming and scripting languages such as CGI and PHP. The underlying problem factor in each of these no-no’s is that search engine indexes just don’t work on the navigation menus.
Re-directs are essentially blank pages that direct you to another page. Eliminate these useless pages since if they happen to be the landing page, your entire web site may not be indexed.
In the case of frames and the sophisticated programming languages, you can use HTML to accomplish the same thing, without choking the search engines. If you want to use image maps, include the links elsewhere on the same page with the image map as a text link.
Flash has become popular with many but they cause the search engines to slow down, and sometimes give up altogether. If the search engine can’t get past a tacky header to reach your content, neither will the readers.
WEBSITE CONTENT
This is probably the most important tip about SEO. It is the content that the search engine spiders must find. The content should consist of an ample amount of to the point, informative content which uses the keywords in a way that makes sense. Simply adding more text to your website which makes no sense or is irrelevant to the subject of your web site can result in you being permanently blacklisted from the search engine results.
A good way to insure that you have good content is to include informative articles and change them often. This means that you appear as an expert in your field of knowledge, you please the search engines, and visitors enjoy coming to your site to learn about the latest information on your subject.
KEYWORDS & TAGS
Develop and use relevant keywords about your website and its content.
Your keywords should be scattered throughout your web pages, with at least three per page. Don’t make the mistake of simply repeating a keyword over and over, hiding a keyword by making it the same color as the web page background, or running all the keywords together as gibberish. The keywords should be smoothly woven into interesting and informational sentences.
Follow the same guidelines for the descriptive sentences used in the ALT tags for site images and for the META tags.
LINKS
A larger number of quality links to your site from other qualified sites indicates to Google that other web site owners have an awareness of your site and respect the information there. An increased number of outbound links will show that you are sharing content about a like field. Two cautions apply with outbound links though: you don’t want to be a traffic hog; neither do you want to link too extensively to your competitors’ websites.
Bad Neighbor Policy
Posted on 12. Dec, 2007 by ComCorp in Search Engine Optimization
The ‘bad neighbor policy’ is also known as the ‘bad neighborhood policy’. The bad neighborhood policy is most used by Google Search Engines as an integral part of its PageRank program. Because Google algorithms place so much emphasis on how popular your site is as compared to other sites where the keywords are more contributory toward the page ranking, it stands to reason that web masters would attempt to collect as many incoming links as possible to boost the page rating.
Entire web sites and directory were set up for the purpose of collecting and reselling links. For a price, you could make it appear that your web pages were being linked to thousands of others, all of whom recognized you as an authority in your field. Therein lies the problem. From these link farms, you were not receiving quality links, just links. So Google began to process of qualifying the incoming links to your site. Not only the number of back links, but the quality of the back links were rated. If your ratings came from a link farm or from a series of reciprocal links, you were considered to be in violation of the bad neighbor policy and your web site could be penalized by a lower ranking or even by banning.
Google has stated that an occasional bad link is not going to result in penalties; it’s the consistent bad links that create negative results for your web pages. Not only bad links, but also dead links leading to 404 pages can be considered as a bad neighborhood.
Ultimately though, your viewers are not going to care who you are linked with so long as it is associated with the subject which they are researching, so that Google or any other search engine considers a bad neighbor only matters in the ranking which your web page receives from the search engine algorithm. For the benefit of your web page visitors, you should be reviewing links and correcting or removing them on a regular basis. There is some software available to assist in the task of identifying dead or dangling links.
One thing in the course of search engine optimization which seems to have been lost sight of is the fact that you are not fussing with keywords and META tags and ALT attributes and making sure all your neighbors are of the right class; you are optimizing your web pages so that more people will find what they are looking for by visiting your site. Increasing your page rank is just ONE way of accomplishing that goal. You also need to make sure your content works for the human reader. You need to have accurate, well-written pages that draw and hold the interest of the reader. They need to be on subject and informative.
So, do the technical things to make sure that you are perceived by a robotic crawler, but don’t forget that the robots are not the ones buying your product or service, people are.
The Big Three: Google, Yahoo, and MSN
Posted on 09. Nov, 2007 by ComCorp in Search Engine Optimization
Although there have been many attempts at search engines over the last decade, at present three companies attract the most search inquiries and thus are the most popular sites used to structure web sites that will have the highest rankings. Because the format and structure as well as the search engine algorithms are significantly different from each other, no one strategy will work for all three. An effective web marketing professional individual or company should develop a strategy for an e-marketing campaign which will take note of the differences and similarities of the three and will utilize these factors in the presentation of the business on the internet.
Google started life in 1996 as a doctoral research project by Stanford University students Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Their goal was to create a ranking mechanism for web pages that went beyond simply counting the number of keywords used on the web page and returning search results ranked by how the page content compared that of other web site pages. Originally the search engine that resulted which was nicknamed Backrub, carried the domain name google.stanford.edu. Page and Brin went on to incorporate the company in 1998 with initial capitalization of over $1 million.
The unique concept behind a Google search engine was determining a methodology for measuring the relative importance of a web page based not upon the number of times a particular phrase or word could be used on the page, but on how the web page was perceived by other web pages with like subject matter. Simply stated, it was assumed that that pages with the best network of links to other important pages should be ranked the highest in presenting search engine results.
The basic algorithms behind Google search have evolved over the years, to include many other factors beside the number and quality of links, but PageRank developed by the two co-founders of the company still plays an important role in the development of web page rankings. Other factors which impact the Google search engine algorithms include how well the content of the page matches the keywords used, whether the structure of the website and the navigation to its various pages is easily accomplished by the search engine spider, how well the keywords are placed on a page, and the age of the web page–just to name a few.
There is little doubt that Google holds the premier position amongst the search engines and for good reason. It is estimated that over half of all search queries on the Internet are placed through Google.
MSN / MICROSOFT
Microsoft of course, has been around and has been bringing out new software products for years, which is just exactly why their search engine, developed from the ground up, has taken such a strong position in the same league with Yahoo almost from the beginning of its beta release of MSN Search.
MSN started life with 5 billion indexed pages in its database that gives it a great beginning, but still only half the size of Google. Some nice features structurally with MSN search is that it works flawlessly with the other Windows products. You can use MSN Search in local mode, which is great for finding close sources for products or services. The process is transparent to the user. It’s created by Microsoft’s files on IP addresses. MSN Search also provides simple factual information by accessing such non-web entities as Encarta and MSN Music. These locations are linked on web searches as well for the most comprehensive and up-to-date responses.
To be able to customize queries to exclude or refine search results could turn out to be the most powerful part of Microsoft’s product, although it does seem to be a bit tricky to use. The factors that’s going to be the hardest to overcome for MSN is the huge name recognition factor which Google and Yahoo each have going for them. Both these two unusual names are so much more remarkable than MSN Search. Whether the wide acceptance of MS Windows products will be enough to overcome the lead that Google has in the industry remains to be seen.
YAHOO
Until 2003, Yahoo Search relied on the search engine established by Google to obtain results to present to queries on Yahoo sites. However, during the years between 2002 and 2004, Yahoo systematically acquired companies with their own web crawlers, including Inktomi, Altavista, and AlltheWeb. The search engines from the acquired companies were combined and essentially reinvented to become Yahoo Search, later supplemented by Panama.
Yahoo released Panama in early February 2007. Initial study confirms that Yahoo has moved from its traditional first position goes to the highest bidder model to a system that ranks bidders in much the same way the Google Search Engine operates. Other changes to the way web sites are viewed include a fresh way of looking at Click Through Rates. Yahoo is moving toward using only the newest information for ranking click throughs. Expected click through rates are also calculated based on such features as bids, click-through rates, ad copy, URL’s, landing pages, advertiser information and advertiser industry segment. Some of these factors Yahoo refuses to discuss in any great detail, as is to be expected in order to prevent SEO developers to use the information to skew the rankings.
Early implementation of the Panama Search Engine expects to go lightly on certain aspects of the ranking algorithms. For example the landing page will not be a strongly weighted in the beginning as it will be later on in the process.
Yahoo is provided extensive training and tips to advertisers as they move to the new system, along with tips on how to best utilize the keywords and site structure that may seem overwhelming.
Yahoo has added a feature called the quality index to demonstrate graphically what the value of the overall index. Quality will be calculated on the individual keywords, but will only be presented at the keyword group level.
WordTracker Promotion
Posted on 08. Oct, 2007 by ComCorp in Search Engine Optimization
A great keyword research tool, Wordtracker, that is used for search engine optimization is running a promotion. If you are serious about doing in-house seo, then we recommend this tool.
Please click on the link below to see the Latest offers by WordTracker.
WordTracker Limited Time Offer
Note: This promo code also works on the one month subscription.
The DMOZ Challenge
Posted on 02. Oct, 2007 by ComCorp in Search Engine Optimization
The DMOZ challenge stems from a disbelief that it’s possible to get a web site approved for inclusion in the DMOZ database within a three month period. The challenge was issued on an ad revenue-sharing forum in January of 2007.
DEFINITIONS
DMOZ is also known as the Open Directory Project or ODP. The name DMOZ comes from its original domain name directory.mozilla.org due to its loose affiliation with the Mozilla project. The concept behind the organization of the Open Directory Project it’s a human edited open content directory of web sites. ODP is currently owned by Netscape and is multilingual. It’s maintained by a community of volunteer editors who must be approved by existing editors. Web sites are categorized using a hierarchical ontology scheme in which sites are grouped by individuals, classes or sets of objects, attributes, relations or events. Ontology is a representation of how the field of knowledge is categorized. In practice, major categories are broken down into smaller and smaller units, each a part of the one above it.
HISTORY
The Open Directory Project was begun as the Gnuhoo in 1998. The Free Software Project objected to the use of “Gnu” in the name, because FSP believed it to be against the spirit of free software. Gnuhoo became NewHoo, whereupon Yahoo objected. Before the name could be changed to the new choice of ZURL, Netscape acquired the project and it became ODP. Netscape was obtained by AOL that later merged with Time-Warner. The number of indexed URL’s has grown from 100,000 shortly after acquisition by Netscape to over 4 million in December 2003. On line reports have been available and updated monthly since January 2006.
By May of 2005 75 world languages are included with almost 7500 active editors at that time.
CONTENT
Editors specializing in adding new listings, editing existing listing for spelling and grammatical errors, or removing spam and duplicates from submissions, maintain the directory. Content users include Yahoo, Netscape, Google, AOL and Alexa. Over 300 websites are licensed to use ODP data in the English language with an additional 238 in other languages.
Because ODP has maintained its stance of no cost for admissions, there has been a gradual divergence of content of the directory between ODP and other directories which use paid submissions. The free directory tends to attract more informational articles and websites, while the commercial directories are increasingly showing heavier concentration of merchandise and commercial products.
EDITORS
The structure of editors is hierarchical in the same way as the categories. New editors not picked lightly and some sections or categories go for long period with not editing, as a result.
COMPLAINTS
Although there are written procedures in place for dealing with complaints, critics state that there is bias amongst editors for their own web sites. There may be conflict of interest issues at work since statistics about the number of web sites owned by editors show a high percentage of editor websites are approved for admission to the directory.
In House or Outsourcing SEO
Posted on 25. Sep, 2007 by ComCorp in Search Engine Optimization
In the past only the largest companies could afford to have in house staffing to do search engine optimization. Although more companies, including small and medium sized businesses have recognized the benefits of utilizing such skills to increase sales revenues, finding skilled and experienced people to fill the gap has been increasingly difficult.
The outsourcing SEO companies understandably are not going to promote the use of either other SEO companies or in house staff, because it cuts into their own potential business. Additionally, there is a certain mystique associated with search engine optimization in the minds of uneducated businessmen and women.
On the other side, because skilled and experienced SEO people are still hard to find, the business may be forced to use outsourcing to obtain quality and experience. Businesses in certain areas of the United States find it more difficult to obtain in house SEO staff. Usually the East Coast and West Coast have people who can perform the job satisfactorily while the central part of the country has fewer qualified candidates.
That being said, here are some of the pros and cons for each method of obtaining good search engine optimization for your business web sites.
IN HOUSE ADVANTAGES
In house staff understands the buzzwords of their industry. It will be more likely that appropriate keywords can be chosen, and the local talent will know the infrastructure of their business better than an outsourcing expert, no matter how skilled they are at optimization. Not always, but usually in house staff will be less expensive than outsourcing, even if outsourcing must be contracted to audit the work of the in house folks.
In house folks are more likely to understand the internal politics of the company and how to get the suggested changes completed without being sandbagged by another staff member for reasons that have nothing to do with need or quality of the work.
In house staff can focus on the needs of the business rather than being distracted by the needs of multiple clients that may be experienced by outsourcing companies. An internal team will consist of people who are needed to accomplish the task at hand. The internal team is less likely to implement methods that will not work in the environment of the business.
An in house SEO person or team will help to monitor the implementation of backlinks so that both ends of the link receive benefits.
OUTSOURCING ADVANTAGES
Outsourcing companies typically have wider experience in the field and may understand and use methods, which the in house staff either is unaware of, or is unable to use effectively. For small projects that are limited in scope, outsourcing companies may be able to complete the job more economically.
Outsourcing companies are less likely to be biased for or against a particular department in suggesting needed changes. They may be better able to criticize a proposed change because they can see the larger picture and are able to offer criticize without worrying about internal politics of the business.
Outsourcing teams are usually able to provide links and link building strategies that the internal SEO team would not be able to access. They are more likely to provide tangible results in a shorter amount of time than the in house staff.
Finally, outsourcing means other valuable assistance in addition to the specific task at hand is made available to the business.
Backlinks
Posted on 24. Sep, 2007 by ComCorp in Search Engine Optimization
Backlinks are any links that come into a web site or web page. In a wider sense, backlinks are any connections between an outside web page, domain, web directory or web site. Backlinks are also called inward links, in links, inbound links or incoming links. Search engines, particularly Google use the number of incoming links as one measurement of the importance or ranking of the page. Google’s algorithm is called PageRank. Other search engines tend to place less emphasis on the backlinks and more on other factors such as page content.
Most search engines, including Google provide a way to view the number of incoming links on most web pages. Backlink data is generally not tracked for password protected pages or for dynamic pages due to the difficulty of implementing programming for such information.
In using backlinks, some study must be given to the concept of link popularity. Some backlinks are better than others. Originally, when Google first stressed the importance of backlinks, many web designers thought to increase page rankings by simply increasing the number of backlinks that appeared on the web pages in question. Then it was realized that so-called link farms were selling their services. These e-businesses sold links as a product.
Thousands of links unrelated to the product on the individual web page was worthless information and the algorithms were adjusted to disregard links to obvious link farms.
So, in adding backlinks to your web pages, you should consider the following points. First, every page should have at least one backlink. An incoming link implies that the page is important enough to create interest by other web sites in the same or similar industries or fields. Many incoming links would seem to indicate that your web page is recognized as an authority on the subject.
Again, not all incoming links are rated the same. An incoming link from a major directory will have a higher rank than will a backlink from an obscure home page.
One-way links, incoming are generally considered to be more important that reciprocal links. Indeed, too many outgoing links can reduce the page rating. By the same reasoning, a backlink with a web page that has few outgoing links is considered to be a better link than a backlink with a web page with many outgoing links. The major concept is to create the impression that other web pages treat your link as important; that it’s not necessary to have many links if they have your page.
Your backlinks should be anchored with relevant text. The search engines need to be able to see that there is a good reason for the backlink; the incoming link came to your web page for specific information found in your keywords, and found the information on the landing page.
Some web masters create multiple domains in order to use multiple backlinks for their clients. Unfortunately, these methods to increase web page ranking can backfire on you and result in a lower web page listing rather than a higher one.
Black Hat SEO
Posted on 22. Sep, 2007 by ComCorp in Search Engine Optimization
Black hat search engine optimization methods are generally considered to be those that cannot be seen by the visitor to the site or are not part of the cohesive whole site. However, in the sense that black hat search engine optimization is perceived to be unethical, it might be wise4r to attempt to find another term to refer to ‘black hat” web masters. For, such techniques are not misleading the public necessarily, nor are they illegal in most cases.
In the cases where such techniques might mislead the Google searcher, it is usually due as much to accident as to deliberate intent. In other words, the keywords can be misleading, thus causing the search engine to call in pages that should not have been selected because of the content displayed. A deliberate attack would be to deliberately set out to hijack the web address of a profitable competitor just to prove it could be done.
There are several techniques that are commonly considered to be black hat search engine optimization methods. For instance, comments tags allow you to hide keywords within your source code. Generally, since search engines don’t look at the comments anyway, this method of adding keywords is less helpful than some others. Some black hat types use stuffed ALT attributes. ALT attributes are intended to assist those people using accessibility devices such as Braille readers and screen readers. The Alternative text describes the image so that the blind person can understand what the object is that is placed on the screen. A black hat technique will not describe the object, but will instead pad the text with more keywords. They may also describe the image AND pad the text with added keywords. A good rule of thumb is to use ALT attributes that could be understood if read aloud. Extra words that don’t describe the image are counter to the purpose of the ALT attributes. Another caution is to avoid using very small 1 pixel by 1-pixel images just for the purpose of additional ALT attributes.
Because of keyword stuffing, many of the search engines have attached less and less importance to the META description tags. The keyword stuffing is the black hat technique. Instead of using real informative descriptions of the content material for the page, the META description was being used just to randomly insert keyword strings. Because of the use of black hat META description treatment the search engines have reduced the importance of the use of keywords, or have taken steps to relate keywords to the page context. In this instance, search engines have also determined an upper limit of keyword usage. In other words, too many keywords reduce the rank in the same way that too few keywords does. Actually, since it’s assumed to be deliberate black hat techniques, it can result in removing the web page or entire web site from the rankings.
The important points to remember to avoid potential black hat accusations is no keyword stuffing, stay away from bad neighborhoods and build a great resource site.
White Hat SEO
Posted on 20. Sep, 2007 by ComCorp in Search Engine Optimization
White hat SEO is a term used to describe so-called ethical search engine optimization, as opposed to black hat SEO. The basic premise for white hat search engine optimization is that the methods used to increase the ranking of the web pages will be consistent with search engine guidelines. Good SEO techniques mean that what the viewer sees is pleasing to the eye and is a response to the basic query posed on the search engine.
Probably the most important thing to remember when optimizing search engine results is that consistent efforts to comply with basic web design factors will get better results over time than will high risk techniques commonly known as black hat SEO. There are both on page and off page white hat techniques that should be utilized. It cannot be overemphasized that search engine optimization should be the overriding reason for presenting a web site. The most effective approach is to prepare and present a web site that is understandable and agreeable to human viewers that will also be perceived well by the search engines.
Since ‘white hat’ has the connotation of ethical as opposed to ‘black hat’, many web site developers use the term incorrectly to refer to others methods as being somehow less ethical than their own. Generally, the term white hat has been used to mean if it the SEO results can be seen by the visitor to the web page it is a white hat SEO. If it cannot be seen by a visitor, or is something that is not an integral part of the whole, then it is unethical or black hat.
The major reason for adopting white hat methods is that the search engines provide a lower ranking for pages that use black hat methods. A web page that consistently uses black hat methods will receive a lower ranking or will be banned completely. If banned, the web page results simply don’t show up in search engine queries. It’s important to remember that using methods that search engines don’t approve of is not morally wrong, just a violation of what may be arbitrary rules.
So, assuming you don’t want to be ranked lower than you deserve, or banned, how can you use so-called white hat techniques to improve your search engine placement? Review your web sites and check for things like dangling links. Dangling links are those that don’t go anywhere else. Each page in your website should link to at least one other page. Make sure all the links off site work and go to pages that you are proud to be associated with.
Review the use of keywords and phrases in your META attributes. Use ALT attributes where appropriate. Google in particular looks for relevant links so that the viewer who is sent to your page is going to find material that matches the search queries. The search engines also want to see your page titles match the content on the page.
In short, the following white hat methods have been proved to be effective in improving search engine rankings.
Select your keywords carefully, distribute them throughout your web site and don’t overuse them
Make sure internal links get the viewer to the search term with no more than 4 clicks and 2 clicks is preferable
Try to use good incoming links appropriately to match your keywords and pages.
