So you think that SEO has nothing to do with programming? Well by and large this might be so, but anyone even thinking about starting an SEO campaign needs to know a little HTML. Why? Well, because Google says so of course. Or at least they’re saying so with the introduction of the HTML 5 Version of their YouTube video player. Since Google is the standard by which many SEO professionals measure the success of their campaigns, this is not to be taken lightly.

Why introduce a new HTML system at all? HTML 4 first came into being in late 1997, over 10 years ago. That’s a lifetime when it comes to technology. In those days websites were mainly static and didn’t include the level of interactivity that exists on a lot of sites today. HTML 5 is designed to address this issue and essentially speed up the internet.

Websites will be better able to be standardized, making it easier for web developers to work on and update projects. New tags will also allow page divisions to be read better by search engine spiders. This means that they will be able to read the content as opposed to the whole page and this will translate into more precise search results. It remains to be seen whether HTML 5 will take over the internet but, with Google backing it, the chances are pretty high.

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The very recent update from the world of Google is that YouTube and Google are going to join their hands together to explore the unseen opportunities of online videos which could enhance all sorts of interests of Search Engine Optimization. Till this time, Google has been trusting Google videos to link online video clippings to the web pages. Eliminating the limited capabilities of Google video, Google signed up with YouTube which could bring tremendous improvements in video quality, Search engine results and lots more.

First and foremost objective of Google-YouTube interaction is to send a link from the YouTube to your web page to run the video associated content. The second objective seem to be the obvious reason behind the Google-YouTube thinking which helps the search engine optimization objectives of a web page to broaden the horizons in its long run.

The practice of Search engine enhancement through YouTube starts from the inclusion of a video site map which would be extremely different from that of an inclusion of HTML site map or SML site map of the web site you are trying to promote. This practice demands you to have a different landing for each and every video clippings you include which would increase the chances of search engines to find your video fast.

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Google has successfully launched their latest innovation, the browser called Google chrome. But no sooner than its launch, it had caught the eyes of critics due to the security flaws related to Google chrome. 

One of the main flaws in the security set up of Google chrome is that, chrome is vulnerable to carpet bomb attacks. Since there is the automatic facility to download files, it can happen that malicious files get downloaded into the user’s desktop even without prompting for user permission. The end result is the installation of the malicious code in their desktop. Though, Google had replied this issue saying that, it is possible for users to change the settings as per their need. This will allow users to change the automatic downloading of pages as and when required. 

Another flaw has recently been identified from Google chrome and this is being called “save as” problem. With this problem, the long HTML tag named web pages on saving will cause a stack over flow problem. This will make it easier for attackers to execute any arbitrary code in the user’s desktop. The only requirement for this attack to happen, from the part of the attacker is to somehow provoke the users to open malicious pages.

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When the earlier search engines used lists to extract information needed for providing results to queries, Google is trying to extract the information from tables. 

Google is trying to take the information from tables where meaningful data is contained. They will take the data from the tables and will create a separate database for them and will try to relate the data in different tables to each other. They will later allow people to search through these data. 

All this is possible because of the peculiar structure of the tables. The tables have columns and there are labels for these columns. This will help Google to extract the information with the corresponding label and will store it in a database. This data stored in the database can be used to help searchers in the later. 

The pages in websites can have structured as well as unstructured data. The unstructured information will not be in the form of tables with labels and hence wont have values for the labels. On the other hand, the structured data will be more organized. 

Google is researching on how to extract the data from the HTML tables and later on how to use this information for searching using keywords.

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If you start delving into the history of search engine optimization and its paradigm, you will find keywords have always played a vital role in search activities as well as bringing visitors to your website. As soon as the concept had been brought to the broad day light, people started stuffing keywords here and there in the website and in some cases even people have adopted the unethical way of camouflaging keywords unnecessarily. It has been also noticed that people have tried to hide keywords under the shade of images or even plain text of the website.

We tend to forget that search engine crawlers have improvised much today by the application of robots and any anomaly or exceptional behavior for any website can not escape the eyes of the spiders and crawlers. So, the search engine has taken no time to identifying such websites and some of them have been even panelized. Now what to do? On one hand keyword stuffing helps in ranking and visibility, on the other hand stuffing may even award a penalty.

We have got very clear cut suggestion over here to address the keywords issues. You need to first prepare your content for your sales activity. Once you have framed the initial content, now research the keywords for each of them. We hardly believe in the concept of segmentation of keywords like primary, secondary, tertiary etc, though many SEO companies and consultants emphasize on such divisions. You need to find out the main sales jargons from your content and perform the research activities accordingly. We insist NOT to increase the keyword density just for the sake of keyword stuffing. Rather use the keywords proportionately, which never distorts the meaning or objective of the content. Be very careful and nitty-gritty like spelling errors annoys the crawlers just like the normal visitors at your site.

Never try to hide keywords behind as crawlers and spiders are intelligent enough and even look at the HTML codes, before sending their observation to the search engine databases. Rather you can use the keywords in title tags and Meta Tags. Usage of keywords in H1, H2 etc. are NOT mandatory. You can also use the keywords intelligently in ALT Tags.

Finally we want to repeat, never underestimate the intelligence of crawlers and spiders. Don’t be too artificial, rather normal attitude of yours will help you in ranking!

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Cluttered websites have got a more repelling impact just as complete disarray results in hayware. If the web page portrays too much information and that too presented in a cluttered way it becomes highly irritating to the visitor, as they become more confused than convinced. An effective website always focuses on neatness revealing systematically organized content and images to create a positive vibration in the visitor’s mind. It is not only the content and images, a website demands a clean piece of code and script also.

Presentation of content can be nicely done using several tags like h1, h2, h3 and different user defined styles. Images have to be embedded with the meaningful ALT tag. Title tags become highly useful in many cases. Please take note that even w3c insists on usage of the ALT tag vividly. If you want to use flash movies or animated gif files, they should also follow the basic nomenclature rules. In case of Flash, it is better to convert to the html version, so that the crawler can read them easily. Remember Search Engine crawlers and spiders also emphasize on tags like h1, h2, <strong> etc just like a normal visitor. Never be in the habit of stuffing keywords unnecessarily, which again draws the attention of the crawlers. You can simply take the example of a separate style sheet file, which not only enables you to reuse the code by repetition of definition of each style in every page, it also helps the web page to look clean.

Most of the web pages demand some kind of scripting to be embedded. It may be a mouse rollover script or color changing script to highlight some of your important texts or messages. Whatever the reason may be it is preferable to segregate the script in separate files. An example may be a java script may be stored in a .Js file and only the embedding can be done in the original web page. If the codes are properly commented it not only helps the developers to debug, it also helps the crawlers and spiders. Use the concept of objects and classes as much as possible, which reduces the size of the web page drastically.

We must mention that get out of the habit of camouflaging keywords in your content or tags. Keyword research had never been easier before. You have got plenty of tools like Wordtracker, Google/ Yahoo Keyword Research tools etc. So, you can easily find out the most used keywords, but never try to clutter them in your web page. Change the content accordingly as genuine and fresh content always cuts ice in the reader’s mind, which is at the threshold of every seo technique.

So, go ahead, start cleansing your WebPages right away and wait for the next updates from the search engine crawlers.

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Ever wondered on how to deal with SEO for your website when it is build using Flash? The only piece of advice possible in this case is to keep it something in the middle of what the website visitors are going to see and what it looks like to Googlebot. Because if you don’t, you’re likely to have your site appearing suspicious to Google’s algorithms. This includes cloaking, hidden text in metatags, Javascript redirects, doorway pages, over numbered hidden keyword listings. Here is a couple of practical pieces of advice by Google’s engineers:

1. Limit the use of Flash only to where there’s nothing can exist instead of it. This basically means that one should use Flash for the rich media accents on the page, not the content or navigation. This also expands your website’s audience to those who have non-standard browsers, those whose bandwidth’s limited (like PDA users or a people using cell phones), visually impaired visitors using screen readers, etc. Additional pro towards this method is visitors can use bookmarks and e-mail links to your site’s pages to their friends.
2. Some full flash websites utilize the Flash technology to force browser to show headers, pull quotes and/or other text elements with a font that might not be installed at user’s computer. A sIFR technique allows non-Flash readers read a page, since the content and navigation is still in the HTML – it’s basically displayed by an embedded Flash object.
3. Use of alternative versions of the site. Another way you can see the Flash used is a front page “into page” where the URL of a website has the flash intro that links to HTML content further into the site. Using this technique, make sure your visitor can navigate into the website (as well as the Googlebot) without the need of Flash.

To sum up although flash websites do look very attractive they would not be fully recommended for SEO purposes.

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