SEO FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions about Search Engine Optimisation

Thanks to the users of #SEO @ EFnet for providing the questions.

  1. Is example.com and www.example.com treated as the same page by search engines?
    • No, search engines view them as two separate sites.
    • Consider this: .com is a domain, example.com is a domain, exa.explain.com is a domain, exa.exa.example.com is a domain, etc. Therefore they are treated as separate entities.
    • It is recommended to focus on one domain, see: What’s a preferred domain?
  2. Does CSS effect SEO?
    • No, it doesn’t CSS is purely visual for users, search engines have no interest in your site’s style.
    • However, using CSS generally forces you to use correct markup, which makes the site better for indexing.
    • Remember though, search engines are build to be backwards compatible, from when we used tables for layouts.
    • Common sense tells us that search engines have no interest in style.
  3. When is the next Google PageRank update?
    • The true answer is “We don’t know”.
    • seocompany.ca attempts to guess when the next update is.
  4. Do unique visitors in your web stats include things like hits from people on google image search?
    • Of course they do. You should check with the webstat software vendor to be certain.
    • Common sense tells us that if it’s in the logs, it’s in the stats.
  5. How do search engines work out what country my site is in?
    • Where the IP address of your domain is located.
    • The ccTLD (ie: .uk).
    • Backlinks from sites with the above.
  6. When should I use rel=”nofollow” on anchor links?
  7. Should I use dashes (-) or underscores (_) in my URLs?
    • The short answer is dashes (-).
    • In most search engines if you type in two words separated by an underscore (_), it treats the whole thing as you see it. (ie: mobile_phone is read as mobile_phone)
    • In most search engines if you type in two words separated by a dash (-), it detects it as one whole word or even two separate words. (ie: mobile-phone could be mobilephone or mobile phone)
    • Common sense tells us that if google sees a dash (-) as a space we should use that.
  8. Do aged domains rank higher on search engines than newer domains?
    • Short answer is no.
    • Search engines do not care how old your domain is.
    • They do however care about the backlinks.
    • Common sense begs us to ask why should they?
    • However, they do care about aged websites.
  9. How can I find keywords relating to “keyword”?
  10. Where can I find a list of web directories?
  11. I have two domains, one is a .com the other is a .co.uk, which should I use?
    • If you are focusing on a UK market, use the “.co.uk” domain.
    • If you are focusing on the global market use the “.com” domain.
    • If you are focusing on both, try making geo targetted urls. (eg: www.example.com/uk/)
    • This is just classic common sense.
  12. Is PageRank important?
    • Short answer is no.
    • Do not focus on trying to increase your PageRank
    • Focus on marketing and SEO and PageRank should follow
    • Common sense says: it’s just a number, it doesn’t make money.
  13. Is cloaking a good idea?
  14. How important are the description and keyword meta tags?
    • Search engines do not rely on meta tags
    • Meta descriptions are sometimes displayed in the serps if it is deemed more appropriate than the actual content.
    • The keywords you choose to place in your meta tag should appear in the body text. You shouldn’t need any more than 10, no repeating.

Where to get further help: Try #SEO on EFnet (IRC), you can also try the SEO Help Forums.

Note: Answers are provided using via the general consensus and common sense theory, I do not believe in third party articles due to the speculation and Chinese whispers factors, any sources provided are first hand.

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