How to Avoid Search Engine Ranking Issues
There was a time when I used to write articles for a client that wanted to increase their website's search engine ranking by having an additional 500 or so links to their website daily.
That would eventually add up to roughly 180,000 links every year. However, it was unfortunate to know that they ended up ranking 11th in the search engine's visibility. A research was done for the client, and possible issues that may cause search engine ranking problems were identified.
Iterative title tags are one of the most common problems. Most search engines eliminate websites that use repetitive title tags from their top rank. To solve this problem, make sure to double check for repetitive title tags and come up with unique titles. This will make a huge difference on a website's search engine ranking. Non-essential texts in the title tags and links like “Click here” and “Register now” can also decrease search engine ranking. These unnecessary text should be eliminated from the title tags as well. Use only the keywords that are absolutely necessary for search engine spiders to look for.
Other common problems are broken links to the home page and too many of 404 errors. Many times have articles been returned to writers for having misspelled URLs that eventually lead to Never Never Land. Fortunately, these issues are also easy to solve and avoid. Make sure the domain names are typed in correctly and that files are properly uploaded and linked. Also, check the links by opening them to make sure that none of the necessary files have been deleted by accident.
Wild cards on a URL could also be an issue. Characters like ampersands, hash, question marks, equal signs, and the like pose a potential risk to search engine spiders. Avoid producing dynamically generated pages that have complex strings and a lot of special characters. Simple URLs are easier to index, therefore faster to search and rank.
Too many 301 redirects on a website are also being filtered by search engines nowadays. The code "301" is interpreted as "moved permanently". A 301 redirect usually happens when websites are being edited or redesigned, and web pages have to be redirected. Search engines like Google place these web pages in a “sandbox”, which temporarily reduce its ranking. To avoid this, make sure the proper protocols like search engine optimization are performed initially.
Popular search engines have also recently added site speed to their search algorithm for ranking. Website that are faster to load now have a better chance of getting high ranking. To increase a site’s ranking, make sure that the website is optimized in terms of both size and speed, and that the graphic and multimedia contents are well-designed.
Solutions to these identified potential problems can be useful for site owners to help increase search engine ranking of their website. Most of these issues are easy to resolve, and can be avoided in most cases. A little patience and attention to detail is all it takes to get that homepage back to the top.
Vic Carrara
Masterwebsoftware.com
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