Quick Update: It was noted in the comments (see below) that at least one person was not able to view the new Google layout.  The video below was shot using the Chrome browser but I also tested in Firefox and Safari – in both instances I WAS able to see the new layout.  However, I could NOT see it when testing it in Internet Explorer.  I’ll be interested to see if any of you notice the same thing.

Quick Update #2: Just after posting the update above I went back to Chrome, and searched yet again using the same topic of “coffee”.  And I was NOT able to see the navigation.  However, I CAN in Safari.  So I’m wondering if this is just a quick test or if they’re just rolling it out in some areas?  Curious indeed and just a little more than disappointed that I can’t *now* re-create it.  I’ll keep checking during the day to see if it shows up again.

Before I confuse you too much let me show you the difference and then lay out what I’m going to talk about first.

The only reason I coupled them together was because sometimes people refer to these kinds of searches in the same way…although they are quite different.

The new Google search options I’m referring to in this post reside underneath the “Show Options” section of a Google search results page.

When you use the “Show Options” link you’ll see that whatever you searched on in within Google can be narrowed down by specific areas.  So if you searched on “SEO” for example, you can click the show options link and narrow down that search to show:

• Only videos about SEO.
• Only news about SEO.
• Only blogs about SEO.
• Only forums about SEO.

(I made a video a while back about the Google Wonder Wheel underneath the search options that you might find useful).

Google has continued to update the options in this section and have now added:

• “Past Hour” so that you can see the newest results for the term you searched.
• “Specific Date Range” so that you can search for your topic within a certain time span.
• “More shopping sites & fewer shopping sites” – allowing you to first research a product and then make a purchase when you’re ready to see all of the stores that sell that product.
• “Books, Blogs & News” – you can now click on this link and only see the books related to your search term, the blogs, and the news.
• “Visited pages & Not Yet Visited” – This can be particularly helpful if you don’t want to see the same website over and over again and instead are trying to find fresh information.

These search options will definitely help you narrow down your search results.  If you’re interested in the full Google post about it, visit http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/10/refine-your-search-results-with-new.html

1. intitle – intitle:keyword – If you want to know what web pages are optimizing for a keyword phrase you’re considering, type intitle:yourkeyword in the Google search box.  This will return to you a list of web pages that are using that keyword in their title – an important on-page SEO technique.  If you’re looking for a particular keyword phrase in the title use quotes like this:  intitle:”Keyword Phrase Goes Here”.  And finally if you want to see who isn’t optimizing their pages at all, just for fun, try intitle:”Untitled Document”.  You can also use this for a specific command we talk about below called site.  To see the web pages that are optimizing their title for a certain keyword or keyword phrase within their site then use:  intitle:”Keyword phrase” site:nameofsite.com.
2. inurl – inurl:keyword – If you want to know what URLs contain a specific keyword phrase in their URL (web address) then simply type inurl:keyword.  If you’re looking for a phrase in their URL then type inurl:”keyword phrase”.  Note that this will pull back the pages on a website that contain this phrase in their entire URL including any web pages within their site.
3. inanchor – inanchor:keyword – If you want to know what web pages contain a specific keyword within their anchor text on their page, then simply type in inanchor:keyword.  If you’re looking for a specific keyword phrase, use quotes: inanchor:”keyword phrase”. Alternatively if you want to find a link on a specific web page that contains certain keywords, you’d then type in: inanchor:”keyword phrase” site:nameofsite.com.
4. site – site:nameofsite.com – If you want to see how many pages of a website are indexed in the search engines then type in site:nameofsite.com.
5. link – link:nameofsite.com – If you want to know how many links are pointing to a site you can enter in link:nameofsite.com.  Note that Google is notorious for not giving you all of this information to take it with a grain of salt.
6. filetype -filetype:file_extension.  If you want to know how many web pages have a certain filetype extension you can type in filetype:fla for example.   This will show you all of the pages indexed with the .fla extension.  A great way to see how well Google is indexing flash.  Also try filetype:pdf.  This also works well with the site search.  If for example you wanted to locate a pdf file on a certain website you’d then enter filetype:pdf site:nameofsite.com.
7. intext – intext:Keyword – the intext command allows you to find all web pages that contain a certain keyword within their text.  intext:keyword.  You can also use this with the site command as well to search for a specific word or phrase within a websites text: intext:keyword site:nameofsite.com.  Use quotes to search for a phrase intext:”keyword phrase”.
8. cache – cache:nameofsite.com.  If you want to see the last cached version of a web page or site type in cache:nameofsite.com.

Many new website owners are often told that in order to start getting good incoming links, they need to focus on web pages that have high PageRanks first to get those links from.

While a PageRank does come into play in certain circumstances, it is not the be-all-end-all of getting a good incoming link.

First let’s talk about what PageRank is and why it’s become such a sought-after item.

PageRank is the value that Google (not Yahoo!, not MSN) assigns to a web PAGE depending on how important Google believes that page to be.

Google of course doesn’t tell us all of the factors that make a page “important” or “unimportant” but rather leaves it up to the community at large to try and decipher.

That being said, we do know a few things about how web pages do get better PageRanks. One of the most important factors are the incoming links to a web page. Note that I said “web page” and not “web site”. Each web page on your site is ranked differently than all of the other pages on your site.

If you by chance have a web page that has a PageRank of 6 for example, this does not mean that your entire website has a PageRank or PR of 6, it just means that the one page on your site has a PR of 6.

Back to the matter at hand…we know that the more important the links are pointing to your web pages, the more that Google will likely view your page as important thus giving it a better PR. However, the links that point to your web pages are not the only factors that determine whether or not your web pages get a good PR. There are other factors such as how well your site is laid out, what kind of content you have on that web page, if that web page is “information driven” or “money driven”, etc.

So now that we know at least a portion of what gives a web page good PR, let’s talk about how this factors into incoming links.

Many new website owners are led to believe that in order for their web pages to get to the top of a search results page they must have a number of high PR sites linking to them.

Why this can be so detrimental is because the PR you often see listed for a web page is rarely the actual PR of the page. Google updates the PageRanks that you and I see on a very intermittent basis. However, the PR of a web page is constantly moving up or down on Google’s side of things.

While it is rare that a PR of a page would move drastically in one direction or another, it should not be the only factor that you use when determining who to attempt to get links from.

While it can be helpful to have a high PR site linking to you (high PR being 5 or above), you should not simply focus on getting links from sites that have these high PageRanks.

What most people forget is that there is a natural flow of links that come to any one web page. No one site, even those with high PR’s such as Google themselves or CNN.com for example, have all high PR sites linking to them. Website owners all over the internet are linking to these sites because they contain high-quality information that their site visitors would find helpful.

And the links coming to these sites run the gamut from PR0 sites all the way up to high PR sites, those with PR’s of 6 or above.

The bottom line is, it is the number of links, how relevant those links are to the overall theme of your website, what words are contained in the anchor text they’re using (the clickable portion of the text), how many sites are linking to THAT site, and more.

It’s important to note that just because a web page has a high PR does not mean that it will automatically rank well in the search engines, which is what most website owners are after when they first head out and attempt to find links to their own site.

Instead, it’s important to focus on simply getting links to your site rather than focusing on what the PR of those sites are.

One of the first things I tell people when looking to get links to their site is to first determine who is linking to their competition.  If you simply do a Google search for a keyword you’re focusing on, and determine who is listed in the top 10 positions in a Google and then further determine who is linking to them you’ll be at a much greater advantage than just those who simply seek out high PR sites to get links from.

The bottom line is when you’re first working on getting links to your site, the last thing you should concern yourself with is the PR of a site.  Instead, focus on getting links from the same places your competitors are and be absolutely certain that the site you’d like to get a link from is relevant to the content on your own web page.

Google has rolled out the ability to advertise your videos on YouTube as a way to help your video get seen the same way that your ads get seen on a Google search results page.

Google is narrowing its focus more and more on segments of its audience and advertising via YouTube is another method of many that I’m sure we’re going to see in the future.

Not a whole lot of people are aware that they can advertise their videos much like they advertise text ads on AdWords and so the chances of you getting seen for a highly competitive keyword or phrase is much better and logic would have it, much cheaper than AdWords text-based advertising itself (at least for now).

Here’s an example, if I am at YouTube and I simply type in the keyword “baby” I get a list of about three sponsored videos on the right (highlighted in red).

YouTube Video Advertising

I haven’t yet noticed the typical “More Sponsored Links” that you usually see at the bottom of a typical Google search results page, like this (highlighted in red):

A screenshot of More Sponsored Links

So this leads me to believe that you’ve still got a window of time in which to get your video seen for your product or service, at least for a lower cost.

Google’s Video sponsored listings run much the same way as an AdWords advertisement would, you choose the keywords you want your video to rank for, set a price per click, and so on.  So if you’re already familiar with AdWords then the YouTube sponsored listings might be just what you’re looking for to ramp up your sales.

Some statistics say that 51% of Internet users spend time viewing videos online.  So why not take advantage of this while you can?

Here’s a quick video from Google explaining how it works.  Once you watch this, I’ll give you my two cents on how this might affect your websites SEO positioning.

All right, so after watching the video you now know that you can:

• Rearrange the search results to your liking;
• Add notes to websites for your future reference;
• Delete sites that you don’t want to see come up in your search results;
• Add a web page that you’d like to see in your own search results and
• Even read other people’s notes on websites if you like.

Keep in mind that the SearchWiki will only work if you’re signed into Google.  If you are signed out of Google you’ll only see Google’s search results, not your personalized search results that you set up in SearchWiki.

How this relates to your overall SEO process.

Since SearchWiki has just been released to the public, we don’t quite know yet how it will affect search engine listings.  However, I do have a few theories as to what Google is trying to accomplish with this seemingly helpful way to rearrange items on your search results pages.

One idea is that Google wants to incorporate real users information with their own algorithms.  Since you, the end user of a search engine needs to remain happy, Google can only assume so much information about you.  For years they have attempted to try and figure out what you, the web searcher, might be looking for when you use Google. This has been the basis for their algorithm over the past few years which has been updated, tweaked, and refined based on its own artificial intelligence.

With a SearchWiki, Google can now move out of the “assumption” phase of determining what you’d like to see in a SERP (search engine results page) and incorporate actual users preferences based on what sites they move up to the top of their own listings, what sites they delete and what sites they add to their search listings.

Now keep in mind that only you can see the search listings you personally have chosen.  The actual search results that you see if you aren’t signed into Google will be Google’s typical search results.

However, I believe that as more and more people start using the SearchWiki, we’ll see this information end up as part of the overall Google search algorithm.  So in essence, you’re building the algorithm for Google.

As with all things that could be a possibility and end up as part of a search results page, this is open to SPAM.  Here’s how…

First, while signed into Google, you can add notes to each individual website.  Since we aren’t sure yet, (but we can theorize all we want) whether or not these notes will be taken into account into regular search results pages, we can assume that Google will someday incorporate these notes into their overall algorithm.

This means that a search engine spammer could, theoretically, hire a large group of people to sign into Google and create keyword-rich notations for a particular website.  Of course, we don’t know if these notes will be taken into account in Google’s algorithm, but again, we’re just theorizing here.

Additionally, these same folks could hire another group of people and add a website that they’d like to see listed at the top of their search results for a certain keyword phrase.  Enough people adding a website could trigger to Google that this is a website a lot of people would like to see listed at the top of a SERP for a certain keyword.

Google’s SearchWiki, at least to me, is acting much like a voting system that you’d see at a social bookmarking site but instead of making your personal rearrangement public, it’s private (well, to you AND Google).  At a typical bookmarking site, the more people who vote on a site, the further to the top the listing moves.  I believe that Google is doing the same thing without actually calling this a “bookmarking” site.  Kind of a Google 2.0 if you will.  Google is taking notes as to what you do, but instead of sharing your arrangement with the world like you could share a bookmark with anyone you’d like, you’re only sharing your information with Google.  Who, I believe will in fact use this in their future algorithm updates.

Keep in mind however, that not everyone on the planet has a Google account (much to Google’s dismay I’m sure) and so couldn’t possibly take into account every last web searchers preferences.  But, there are plenty of us out there; enough to make a difference in Google’s entire algorithm.

Something else that could be potentially hazardous to search results is that of deleting a website when using SearchWiki.

Let’s say that another group of people are hired to purposefully delete a website from their search engine results listings when signed into Google.  Could this then mean that with enough money, and enough people at their disposal, that a rogue company could take out their competition?

Remember this is all theory.

So let’s say that Company A has the #1 position and Company B has the #2 position in a Google search results page for a certain keyword.

Company B desperately wants that #1 position.

So rogue, underhanded Company B hires a vast amount of people to log into Google, and remove Company A’s listing from their personal search results perhaps affecting the overall positioning of Company A.

Of course, there’s a lot more that goes into a great search results listing but you can’t help but wonder if someone removing sites from their listings, adding keyword-rich notes to sites and then arranging certain sites to the top of their listings will make an overall difference in the entire future Google algorithm.

Again, these are simply theories.  There’s nothing based in fact here, these are just the ramblings of an 8-year SEO veteran. So I wouldn’t take them into account whatsoever.

Image via Wikipedia

Millions upon millions of people use Google as their search engine of choice everyday to do searches.  But Google has so much more to offer when it comes to just the basic web search.  Here are some top Google search tricks to help you in your SEO efforts (and then some).

allinanchor

What it does:  the allinanchor operator within a Google search will find all of the keywords you’re searching on within the anchor text of any web page.  As an example, if we use the operator allinanchor:baby bottles Google will find all web pages that have links on them that contain the term “baby” or “bottles”.

allinanchor:baby bottles

allintext

What it does:  The allintext operator within a Google search will find all web pages that have all of the terms you searched on within the web page’s text.
For example, if we decided we wanted to find only those web pages that had the terms “baby”, “bottles”, “diapers” and “newborn” on it, we would query Google like so:

allintext:baby bottles diapers newborn

intitle

The intitle Google search operator allows you to find only those web pages that have the word or phrase you searched on within its title.

intitle:cakes

Would return web pages that had the term “cakes” in their title.

If instead you’d like to find those web pages that had a phrase in their title (more than one keyword), you can use the following allintitle operator which is covered next.

allintitle

The allintitle operator when doing a Google search allows you to search only those web pages that have the search phrase contained within the title.

For example, if you’d like to find out how many websites are not optimizing their title tags and have used the default “Untitled document” within their web page’s titles, you’d simply enter the following into the Google search box:

allintitle:”Untitled Document”

This is also helpful if you’re scoping out your competition and would like to know if a competitor has not used their title tag properly.  For example, let’s say that your competitor is Starbucks and you’d like to see if they have not used any of their title tags properly.

You’d enter the following into a Google search page:

allintitle:”Untitled Document” site:starbucks.com

Which brings us to the site operator.

Google’s site: operator allows you to search Google’s index for a website.  This is helpful if you aren’t sure if your brand new website has yet been indexed by Google or you want to see how many of your web pages are in Google’s index.

site:YourSite.com

Notice that we leave off the “www” and the http:// portion of the website address.  This will allow Google to pull all instances of the site regardless of if it found a “www” version or simply a http:// version.

inanchor

Google’s inanchor search operator allows you to search for web pages that have a specific word or phrase within their anchor text (the text that links to another page) like so:

Babies inanchor :bottle – will return all web pages that contain the word “babies” AND have the phrase “bottle” within their anchor text.

We can also use this in conjunction with the site operator as we did above.  So let’s say that we’d like to see what web pages that http://www.coffee.org has that have the word “coffee” in their anchor text.  We’d simply enter in the search query like so:

inanchor:coffee site:coffee.org

inurl

The inurl operator allows you to find those web pages that have that word you’re searching on in their url or web site address.

For example, if we placed the following in the Google search box:

inurl:computer

Google would return all of the websites that had the word “computer” in their website address.
If instead you wanted to find a phrase and not just a single word within a website’s address or URL, you’d then use the allinurl operator covered below:

allinurl

The allinurl operator allows you to find websites that have key phrases within their website address or URL.  For example, if we wanted to find all the websites that had the phrase “computer parts” in their URL or website address, we’d enter the following into the Google search box:

allinurl:computer parts

Keep in mind that both the inurl and the allinurl will find websites that not only have those words or phrases contained within their actual URL such as http://www.SomeSite.com but that also have used that word or phrase in a directory off of their main site.

So in a search for computer parts you might see the following:

http://www.computerlabkids.com/parts.htm

link

The link operator allows you to find websites that are linking to a certain website.  So if you wanted to see who was linking to http://www.houseofquilts.com you would enter the following into the Google search box:

link:houseofquilts.com

Note that Google does not reveal to you all of the links pointing to any one website.  Instead for SEO purposes, I recommend http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com who will give you the first 1,000 links coming into any one website.  And we cover this extensively in our BoneheadSEO.com SEO training classes.

These are just a few of many different search operators that Google offers when doing a search.  However, these are the ones that you’ll find most important when doing your SEO research so keep this list handy and make reference to it whenever you can.

For starters, meta tags and SEO are not one in the same; let me explain.

Meta tags are those tags that reside on your individual web pages that tell the search engines certain things about your site. Your website visitors don’t see these tags but the search engines do.

Here’s what just a few meta tags actually look like and what they do:

**************************************************
THE META KEYWORDS TAG
**************************************************

What it looks like:

META NAME = “KEYWORDS” CONTENT=”Keyword one, keyword two, keyword three”

What it does:
The meta keywords tag (shown above) is a meta tag that many website owners use in order to attempt to rank well in the search engines.

While using lots of keywords in the meta keywords tag used to be a good way to get your site ranked for the keywords you chose for the page, the meta keywords tag is no longer used by many search engines (Google in particular) as an indication of what your web page is about.

It is useful however to you or to the person who creates your web pages in the regard that it can help you to remember what keywords you’re optimizing that page for.

**************************************************
THE META DESCRIPTION TAG
**************************************************

What it looks like:

META NAME=”DESCRIPTION” CONTENT=”The description for your web page goes here”

The meta description tag, unlike the meta keywords tag is in fact used by the search engine as a brief synopsis of what the web page is all about. The description is directly below the link on any search engine results page.

Perhaps the biggest advantage to using the meta description tag is that it gives you the opportunity to “sell” your web page over your competition. Whatever you do, do not use keyword after keyword in your description. Instead use it as a way to compel visitors to come to your site over your competitors.

**************************************************
THE META ROBOTS TAG
**************************************************

What it looks like:

META NAME=”ROBOTS” CONTENT=”NOINDEX, NOFOLLOW”

What it does:
The meta robots tag is underused by a vast majority of web pages but is vitally important if you want to instruct the search engines on how to handle your web page.

For example, the “noindex” content portion of the meta robots tag tells the search engines to not index (or add to its database) that web page. While this might seem a little counter intuitive at first, consider that you might have a private page that you don’t want the general public to access on your website. If this is the case, you’d add the “noindex” content to the meta robots tag.

Additionally, the “nofollow” content to the meta robots tag tells the search engines to “not follow” ALL of the links on the page.

So say for example that your web page was a resource area that linked out to several recommended websites. You may not want to show the search engines that you’re following all of these links and so you’d add the “nofollow” content to the meta robots tag.

It’s important to remember that you don’t have to use them together, you can use the “noindex” only or the “nofollow” only within your meta robots tag.

There are a wide variety of meta tags available to you when you’re designing your site, but what’s important to understand is that none of these nor any other meta tags will help your site rank better in the search engines.

Of all the meta tags available to you, the meta description tag is perhaps the most important since it will give a description to any potential search visitor that searches on the keywords you’ve optimized that web page for.