February 2004

2/23/2004	All three major search engines (Google, Yahoo, & MSN) are now delivering completely different results! (But all three engines will return our schedule information page in the number one position if you search for "internet marketing clinic"!) At this point, there is no way to submit sites to MSN. The only way to get listed is for the MSN bot to find your site through links. No one knows what the MSN bot is doing right now (in terms of how rankings are determined). Prospective future clinic topics include: Usenet & newsgroups, how to get to them and use them. Creating a site using MS Frontpage. How to configure Outlook Express to organize your e-mail traffic. Send an e-mail to this site to indicate your interest in one or more of these topics, or to suggest others that you might be interested in having us cover.
2/16/2004	Jay presented some thoughts on how to create a search engine friendly web site, and followed with a demonstration of setting up a new site in Microsoft Frontpage. Inktomi does not like style sheets. Many browsers also have problems with them. White text on a white "page background" will qualify your site as spam. The "intervening" background color of the cell or table does not matter. "Alt tags" are counted in a keyword density analysis of a page, but these tags are a very "low end" variable in ranking algorithms. Google editors like to see the Company name, address, and phone number on the site. Directories will not accept PO boxes for mailing addresses, and also want to see phone numbers. Jay mentioned authorize.net as a reliable payment processor. Jay is not making adjustments to sites to achieve Google ranking right now as the engine is undergoing too many "rebuilds" and is too unstable.
2/9/2004	MSN and Yahoo will soon (this year?) deliver 80% of the search traffic on the net due to the changeover to Inktomi. "PFI" refers to Pay For Inclusion, and is the new way to ensure that your pages are listed in Inktomi. For $25 per page per year, you will be guaranteed inclusion in the search database within 48 hours. This does not guarantee any ranking! You can also get listed for free, but it may take as long as 6 months. Google will normally have you listed within 4-6 weeks from a free submission. Inktomi's algorithm will include information about page views by visitors and time on page. Click-throughs become much more important as a ranking factor. It has become much more important to get people to stay on your site once they get there. Write your page titles to emphasize keywords for only the current page. In other words, each page should have its own distinct keyword focus. HTML drop down lists will get read by search engines, but drop down lists written in Java will not be read. The most important links to have to your site are those from sites that Google and Inktomi rate as "Best of the Web". These will generally be sites that appear at the top of the listings for various keywords.
2/2/2004	Jay discussed the changes he has noted to the Google algorithm in the latest "Austin" update. His comments included: Niche marketing appears to be more important than ever! Domain names should be selected for "branding" purposes, rather than keyword content. A site should have about 100 pages of content before launch. Categories on the site should number about 9. One referral each from 50 pages on your site is preferable to 50 referrals from one page on your site! Load time is more important than ever, and the standard has been reduced! Mine the category that your site is in in the directories (ODP, Yahoo) for the most effective reciprocal links. (Detailed notes)

Internet Marketing Class Notes