Part One
The due to is speculative nature (because Google does not reveal exact values regarding its search engine ranking algorithm), the field of SEO is rampant with hearsay and opinion, with many blind leading the blind so to speak.
What is a serious business owner/webmaster who wants to base his work on facts to do in this sea of ambiguity?
For this we turn to Google’s very own Matt Cutts as an authority in the field of SEO. Cutts has made hundreds of short videos for webmasters covering most asked about topics regarding Google and SEO. The following is a list of the most poignant and useful items from said videos.
Let’s begin:
1) How does Google treat hidden content which becomes visible when clicking a button?
If you’re not trying to stuff hidden text in there then don’t worry about it, it’s a normal thing on today’s web
2) Should I be worried if a couple of sites that I don’t want to be associated with are linking to me?
No, contact them and ask them not to link to you then disavow them using the disavow tool.
3) Does Googlebot care about valid HTML?
No
4) Is redirecting users based on their location spam?
No, provided it’s for a legitimate purpose.
5) Is there a difference between the “strong” and “b” tags in terms of SEO?
No
6) Are all comments with links spam?
No
7) Is it necessary for every page to have a meta description?
No – Keep them unique and apply them to the most important pages.
8 ) Should I use the disavow tool even if there’s not a manual action on my site?
Yes
9) How many links on a page should we have? Is there a limit?
No limit, but ensure the links are not spammy.
10) Is it a good practice to combine small portions of content from other sites?
No
11) How does Google handle duplicate content?
Google decides which is the most important and ranks that one highly whilst lowering the others.
12) How can an older site maintain its ranking over time?
Keep the site up-to-date, move with the times.
13) Should I build links using article directories?
No
14) Will backlinks lose their importance in ranking?
Ideally yes, as Google better understands content.
15) How does Google choose titles for search results?
1. Relatively short. 2. Accurate description of site and page. 3. Relevant to the query.
16) How can content be ranked if there aren’t many links to it?
Using the other ranking factors such as keyword occurrence.
17) If my site goes down for a day, does that affect my rankings?
No, if it’s just for a short period then you shouldn’t worry about that. If it’s for, say, 2 weeks, then yes that could be a problem
18) Why does Google show multiple results from the same domain?
If the site has multiple pages that are a really good match for the query.
19) What are the top 3-5 SEO areas where webmasters make the most mistakes?
Not having a domain at all, not making it crawlable, not using words people search for on your page, not having compelling content, not having good titles and descriptions, not making use of webmaster resources.
20) How does Google view font replacement?
Use webfonts instead
21) How much time should I spend on meta tags, and which ones matter?
Meta description matters, meta keywords don’t
22) How do I set up authorship?
Point a rel=”author” link to your profile, then name your posts on your profile
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