Frequently Asked Questions:
SEO Questions & Answers:
- What is SEO and do I need it?
- How long will it take for traffic to my site to increase?
- What is Page Rank?
- I have heard that new web sites can take a while to get ranked. Is this true?
- I would like to show Flash movies on my site, but I have heard this is bad for page rank. Is this true?
- How much will my revenue increase with your SEO packages?
- What is click fraud?
- I have heard the databases do not rank well on Google, is this true?
- Why are some database driven websites ignored by Google?
- Is it true that websites with Microsoft databases rank lower than ones built using open source?
- What is Black Hat SEO?
- Is reciprocal linking really a waste of time?
- What is SEO and do I need it?
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation. Most visitors these days find their way to your website via search engines such as Google, Yahoo or MSN. Of the three main search engines, Google is by far the most popular. In most cases Google can be responsible for directing 60% or more traffic to your site. If you do business on the web, then it is vital that people can find your site easily.
- How long will it take for traffic to my site to increase?
You will see traffic increase within days, however more traffic does not necessarily equate to qualified buyers. Qualified buyers will only start to arrive when people searching for your keywords on search engines such as Google, Yahoo and MSN find your site. It is currently taking 3 to 6 months to be properly indexed by these search engines and 9 months or greater if your site is very new or contains very competitive content such as holiday rentals or real estate.
- What is Page Rank?
This is Google’s calculation of how important your site is. It is a calculation based on the number of inbound links from other websites, amongst other things. A page rank of 0 may mean your site is new or has not been indexed properly yet. A page rank of 1 means your site has been indexed, but has few inbound links. A page rank of 2 or 3 is about average, but a rank of 4 means that your site is starting to become popular. The page rank indicatior is not frequently updated and is generally regarded as an unreliable measure of a website's reach.
- I have heard that new web sites can take a while to get ranked. Is this true?
Yes, Google is one of the Search Engines that appear to take note of how long a website has been running. Many in the industry believe they operate a sandbox policy, and will not include a site in their main index until it has been trading for some time. Websites that are able to attract very many inbound links at launch do not appear to suffer from this problem, but this is in practice very difficult to achieve.
- I would like to show Flash movies on my site, but I have heard this is bad for page rank. Is this true?
In my own opinion this is true. This does not mean that Flash movies are a bad thing, it is obvious that video is part of the future of the web. However, new sites with heavy video (Flash) content appear to be having difficulties getting fully indexed. Our recommendation is that you add the Flash content into the site once your web pages have achieved a suitable ranking.
- How much will my revenue increase with your SEO packages?
Your web traffic should increase considerably. If you have a well designed marketing strategy you should be able to convert a good number of enquiries into solid sales. This is known as ROI, or return on investment. However if you are using our SEO strategy to drive traffic to an already existing poorly designed landing page, revenue increase will be moderate. The ideal solution is to opt for the SEO premium plan and benefit from our advice and practical input in putting together a plan to produce the most effective ROI possible.
- What is click fraud?
It is the act of clicking on pay per click adverts in order to fraudulently obtain money. These adverts appear at the top and side of web pages, such as Google results. Click fraud is big business and appears to be running unchecked at the present time. With some keywords costing as much as €10 to €20 a click, this style of promotion must seem like a gift from the Gods to the criminally minded. Another aspect of click fraud is competitor fraud. This is where a competitor finds your adverts and has teams of people click on them in order to drain your marketing budget.
- I have heard that databases do not rank well on Google, is this true?
No! A well designed database should always perform well. We engineer the database pages with search engines in mind. Take a look at Amazon and you will see that the bulk of their database output is well indexed. However this is not the industry norm. Great data engineers do not necessarily design databases that index well. Often they have not the knowledge or interest in SEO, and whilst their databases may be able to perform all sorts search miracles, the pages are rarely listed.
- Why are some data driven websites ignored by search engines?
Search engines such as Google use robots to crawl the web for pages to index. The robots have thousands of pages which they need to find each day. Databases use SQL query strings (the language used to get data out of a database) which robots often will not follow. The reason is that the search engines are worried about the crawler being caught up in infinite loops, where an infinite number of options may be available. They will often only follow database links if there are already many web pages linking, or the query string is short. However our Intelisearch™ proprietary software is built in away which search engines understand and will be happy to follow. The search engine can then easily look at all the pages in the database and index all the content. Of course if the content is of low quality, they may choose to ignore the site anyway.
- Is it true that websites with databases driven from Microsoft software rank lower than ones that are built using open source?
Probably not. At Sorted Spain we only use open source software solutions, because we believe they offer enhanced security and help us reduce our operating costs, these savings we pass on to our clients. Others appear to be happy with the way Microsoft do business.
- What is Black Hat SEO?
It is possible to cheat and gain rank by using Black Hat methods such as Multiple Doorway Pages, Hidden Keywords and Artificial Link Management, Robot Driven traffic etc. All these methods will work for a short while, but once Google detects them, you will be banned from the index and it will be game over. Does this happen? Count on it!
- Is reciprocal linking really a waste of time?
Reciprocal linking is a form of link exchange, where one website links to another in return for a link back. Why would anyone want to do this though? I have written an article on the subject, you can read it on this site, but the short answer still comes in 2 parts. Matt Cutts Google’s SEO advisor to web masters says don’t bother! Google do not appear to like the idea of paid links or link exchange schemes and may well penalize a site that does this. Our current advice is to avoid this practice and encourage only websites with relevant content to link back.
Call us in Spain on: +34 965 050 645 or at local rates from the UK on: 0845 869 5270
