Bing Optimization

Ever since Microsoft launched its Bing search engine, it has drawn a lot of interest (and speculation) from the SEO community. On one hand, this is quite logical because Bing is intended to be one more heavy-weight player and it is expected to cut some share from Google. On the other hand, this is hardly the first time a new heavy-weight player comes to the ring, so maybe the expectations that Bing will put an end to Google's monopoly are groundless. Still, Bing is quite different (in a positive way) from the other search engines and this is its major strength.

Is Bing Really That Different?

The first impression you get when you go to Bing.com is that it is different – the background makes it cute but sure, there have been many other cases of search engines with tons of graphical frills to disguise their irrelevant search algorithms. However, when you type a search term, the results you get are a pleasant surprise because they are relevant.

It is this relevance of search results that worries SEO experts. The results you get when you search with Bing are relevant, yet they are very different from Google's. Actually, no matter if you search with Google or with Bing (or if you go to Bingle, you can compare the result sets side by side), you get relevant results and the two sets are very different from one another.

One of the most important things SEO experts are curious to know about Bing is its algorithm. Obviously, Bing's algorithm is different from Google's because when the search term is the same but the set of results is different, a difference in the algorithm is the obvious answer. Actually, the question is exactly what is different between the two algorithms and if the difference is so drastic that it makes it mandatory to reoptimize a site for Bing.

What Do I Need to Do In Order to Optimize My Site for Bing?

Wait. This is the first thing you need to do. Right now it is too early to say what steps (if any) are required in order to optimize your site for Bing.

Additionally, no matter how promising Bing looks, it is still early to predict if it will become a real competitor to Google or if it will become one more failed attempt to dethrone Google. Let's see how users react – will they start Binging more or will they stick to Google. When it becomes clear that Bing will be able to make it, then it will make sense to optimize for it as well. So for now the best you can do is wait.

Which Factors Make a Site Rank Well With Bing

As you probably guess, the exact algorithm of Bing is not publicly available and because of that there is a lot of speculation about what weighs more for Bing (in comparison to Google) and what weighs less. Many SEO experts test different search queries, analyze the results, and based on that try to figure out what of the known SEO tactics works with Bing. For instance, these tests are quite interesting.

Some SEO experts even think that Bing is actually Live Search in new clothes (i.e. user interface), while others say that there are noticeable differences between Live Search and Bing. But there is no doubt that for now Bing is a significant improvement over Live Search in terms of relevance of search results.

Bing is hardly the first time when there is no agreement in the SEO community about the intricacies of the algorithm but if we can summarize, here are some factors, which are (or at least are strongly believed to be) of importance when Bing optimization is concerned:

• Backlinks are of less importance. If you compare the first 10 results in Bing and Google, it is noticeable that all equal, the winners in Bing have less backlinks than the winners in Google. It is unclear if nofollow matters with Bing.

• Inbound anchor text matters more. The quantity of quality inbound links might be of less importance for Bing but the anchor text certainly matters more. Actually, since anchor text is one of the measurements of the quality of inbound links, it isn't much different. Get quality anchor text and you will do well in both Bing and Google.

• Link spamming won't do much for you on Bing. Since the quantity of backinks (even if they are of supreme quality) seems to be of less importance to Bing, link spamming will be even less effective than with Google.

• Onpage factors matter more than with Google. This is one of the most controversial points. Many SEO experts disagree but many also think that onpage factors matter more with Bing than with Google. Still, it has nothing to do with the 90s, when onpage factors were definitive.

• Bing pays more attention to the authority of the site. If this is true, this is bad news for bloggers and small sites because it means that search results are distorted in favor of older sites and/or sites of authoritative organizations. Age of domain is also very important with Bing – even more than with Google.

• PR matters less. When you perform a search for a competitive keyword and you see a couple of PR2 or even PR1 sites among the top 10 results, this might make you wonder. On Google this is hardly possible but on Bing it looks quite normal.

• Fresh content matters less. Bing looks a bit conservative – or maybe it just can't index sites that quickly – but it seems that fresh content is not so vital as with Google. This is related to the age of domain specifics and as a result you will see ancient pages rank high (but these ancient pages are relevant to the search query).

• Bing is more Flash-friendly. Optimizing a Flash site for Google is a bit of a SEO nightmare. It is too early to say but it looks like Bing is more Flash-friendly, which is good news to all sites where Flash is (still) heavily employed.

For now it is too early to say which factors are of primary importance with Bing. But the fact that their search results are relevant means that their algorithm is really precise. Well, maybe the relevant results in Bing are due to the fact that web masters were taken by surprise and they haven't had the time to optimize for Bing. As a result, the content is authentic, there are no SEO gimmicks and artificial pumping. We'll see if this will stay so in the future, when web masters learn how to optimize for Bing as well! (Webconf.com)

Optimizing for MSN

SEO experts often forget that there are three major search engines. While there is no doubt that Google is the number one with the most searches and Yahoo! manages to get about a quarter of the market, MSN has not retired yet. It holds about 10-15 percent of the searches (according to some sources even less – about 5%) but it has a loyal audience that can't be reached through the other two major search engines, so if you plan a professional SEO campaign, you can't afford to skip MSN. In a sense getting high rankings in MSN is similar to getting high rankings for less popular keywords – because competition is not that tough you might be able to get enough visitors from MSN only in comparison to the case when you have optimized for a more popular search engine.

Although optimizing for MSN is different from optimizing for Google and Yahoo!, there are still common rules that will help you to rank high in any search engine. As a rule, if you rank well in
Google, chances are that you will rank well in Yahoo! (if you are interested in the tips and tricks for optimizing for Yahoo!, you want to have a look at the Optimizing for Yahoo! Article) and MSN as well. The opposite is not true, however. If you rank well in MSN, there is no guarantee that you'll do the same in Google. So, when you optimize for MSN, keep an eye on your Google ranking as well. It's no good to top MSN and be nowhere in Google (the opposite is more acceptable, if you need to make the choice).

But why is this so? The answer is simple - the MSN algorithm is different and that is why, even if the same pages were indexed, the search results will vary.

The MSN Algorithm

As already mentioned, it is the different MSN algorithm that leads to such drastic results in ranking. Otherwise, MSN, like all search engines, first spiders the pages on the Web, then indexes them in its database and after that applies the algorithm to generate the pages with the search results. So, the first step in optimizing for MSN is the same as for the other search engines – to have a spiderable site. (Have a look at Search Engine Spider Simulator to see how spiders see your site). If your site is not spiderable, then you don't have even a hypothetical chance to top the search results.

There is quite a lot of speculation about the MSN algorithm. Looking at the search results MSN delivers, it is obvious that its search algorithm is not as sophisticated as Google's, or even
Yahoo!'s and many SEO experts agree that the MSN search algorithm is years behind its competitors. So, what can you do in this case? Optimize as you did for Google a couple of years ago? You are not far from the truth, though actually is is not that simple.

One of the most important differences is that MSN still relies heavily on metatags, as explained below. None of the other major search engines uses metatags that heavily anymore. It is obvious that metatags give SEO experts a great opportunity for manipulating search results. Maybe metatags are the main reason for the inaccurate search results that MSN often produces.

The second most important difference between MSN and the other major search engines is their approach to keywords. Well, for MSN keywords are very, very important, too, but unlike Google, for MSN onpage factors are dominating, while offpage factors (like backlinks for example), are still of minor importance. Well, it is a safe bet that the importance of backlinks will be changed in the future but for now they are not a primary factor for high rankings.

Keywords, Keywords, Keywords

It is hardly surprising that keywords are the most important item for MSN. What is surprising is that MSN relies too much on them. It is very easy to fool MSN – just artificially inflate your keyword density, put a couple of keywords in file names (and even better – in domain names) and around the top of the page and you are almost done for MSN. But if you do the above-mentioned black hat practices, your joy of topping MSN will not last long because, unless you provide separate pages that are optimized for Google, your stuffed pages might pretty well get you banned from Google. If you decide to have separate pages for Google and MSN, first, it it hardly worth the trouble, and second, the risk of duplicate content penalty can't be ignored.

So, what is the catch? The catch is that if you try to polish your site for MSN and stuff it with keywords, this might get you into trouble with Google, which certainly is worse than not ranking well in MSN. But if you optimize wisely, it is more likely than not that you will rank decently in Google and perform well in Yahoo! and MSN as well.

Metatags

Having meaningful metatags never hurts but with MSN this is even more important because its algorithm still uses them as a primary factor in calculating search results. Having well-written (not stuffed) metatags will help you with MSN and some other minor search engines, while at the same time well-written metatags will not get you banned from Google.

The Description metatag is very important:

<META NAME=”Description” CONTENT=”Place your description here” />

MSNBot reads its content and based on that (in addition to keywords found on page) judges how to classify your site. So if you leave this tag empty (i.e. CONTENT=””), you have missed a vital chance to be noticed by MSN. There is no evidence that MSN uses the other metatags in its algorithm that is why leaving the Description metatag empty is even more unforgivable. (Webconf.com)

Optimizing for Yahoo!

Back in the dawn of the Internet, Yahoo! was the most popular search engine. When Google arrived, its indisputably precise search results made it the preferred search engine. However, Google is not the only search engine and it is estimated that about 20-25% or searches are conducted on Yahoo! Another major player on the market is MSN, which means that SEO professionals cannot afford to optimize only for Google but need to take into account the specifics of the other two engines (Yahoo! and MSN) as well.

Optimizing for three search engines at the same time is not an easy task. There were times, when the SEO community was inclined to think that the algorithm of Yahoo! was on deliberately just the opposite to the Google algorithm because pages that ranked high in Google did not do so well in Yahoo! and vice versa. The attempt to optimize a site to appeal to both search engines usually lead to being kicked out of the top of both of them.

Although there is no doubt that the algorithms of the two search engines are different, since both are constantly changing, none of them is made publicly available by its authors and the details about how each of the algorithms function are obtained by speculation based on probe-trial tests for particular keywords, it is not possible to say for certain what exactly is different. What is more, having in mind the frequency with which algorithms are changed, it is not possible to react to every slight change, even if algorithms' details were known officially. But knowing some basic differences between the two does help to get better ranking. A nice visual representation of the differences in positioning between Yahoo! and Google gives the Yahoo vs Google tool.

The Yahoo! Algorithm - Differences With Google

Like all search engines, Yahoo! too spiders the pages on the Web, indexes them in its database and later performs various mathematical operations to produce the pages with the search results. Yahoo! Slurp (the Yahoo! spiderbot) is the the second most active spider crawler on the Web. Yahoo! Slurp is not different from the other bots and if your page misses important elements of the SEO mix that make it not spiderable, then it hardly makes a difference which algorithm will be used because you will never get to a top position. (You may want to try the Search Engine Spider Simulator and check what of your pages is spiderable).

Yahoo! Slurp might be even more active than Googlebot because occasionally there are more pages in the Yahoo! index than in Google. Another alleged difference between Yahoo! and Google is the sandbox (putting the sites “on hold” for some time till they appear in search results). Google's sandbox is deeper, so if you have made recent changes to your site, you might have to wait a month or two (shorter for Yahoo! and longer for Google) till these changes are reflected in the search results.

With new major changes in the Google algorithm under way (the so-called “BigDaddy” Infrastructure expected to be fully launched in March-April 2006) it's hard to tell if the same SEO tactics will be hot on Google in two months' time. One of the supposed changes is the decrease in weight of links. If this happens, a major difference between Yahoo! and Google will be eliminated because as of today Google places more importance on factors such as backlinks, while Yahoo! sticks more to onpage factors, like keyword density in the title, the URL, and the headings.

Of all the differences between Yahoo! and Google, the way keywords in the title and in the URL are treated is the most important. If you have the keyword in these two places, then you can expect a top 10 place in Yahoo!. But beware – a title and an URL cannot be unlimited and technically you can place no more than 3 or 4 keywords there. Also, it matters if the keyword in the title and in the URL is in a basic form or if it is a derivative – e.g. when searching for “cat”, URLs with “catwalk” will also be displayed in Yahoo! but most likely in the second 100 results, while URLs with “cat” only are quite near to the top.

Since Yahoo! is first a directory for submissions and then a search engine (with Google it's just the opposite), a site, which has the keyword in the category it is listed under, stands a better chance to be in the beginning of the search results. With Google this is not that important. For Yahoo! keywords in filenames also score well, while for Google this is not a factor of exceptional importance.

But the major difference is keyword density. The higher the density, the higher the positioning with Yahoo! But beware – some of the keyword-rich sites on Yahoo! can with no difficulty fall into the keyword-stuffed category for Google, so if you attempt to score well on Yahoo! (with keyword density above 7-8%), you risk to be banned by Google!

Yahoo! WebRank

Following Google's example, Yahoo! introduced a Web toolbar that collects anonymous statistics about which sites users browse, thus way getting an aggregated value (from 0 to 10) of how popular a given site is. The higher the value, the more popular a site is and the more valuable the backlinks from it are.

Although WebRank and positioning in the search results are not directly correlated, there is a dependency between them – sites with high WebRank tend to position higher than comparable sites with lower WebRank and the WebRanks of the top 20-30 results for a given keyword are most often above 5.00 on average.

The practical value of WebRank as a measure of success is often discussed in SEO communities and the general opinion is that this is not the most relevant metrics. However, one of the benefits of WebRank is that it alerts Yahoo! Slurp that a new page has appeared, thus inviting it to spider it, if it is not already in the Yahoo! Search index.

When Yahoo! toolbar was launched in 2004, it had an icon that showed the WebRank of the page that is currently open in the browser. Later this feature has been removed but still there are tools on the Web that allow to check the WebRank of a particular page. For instance, this tool allows to check the WebRanks of a whole bunch of pages at a time. (Webconf.com)

10 Ways to Get Traffic for Free

Getting traffic is one of the most important tasks for any web master. What is more, you can't get traffic once and then just reap the benefits. Getting traffic is an ongoing task and you must be constantly doing it, if you want to get traffic and keep it. Here are some of the ways to get traffic for free:

1. Optimize your site for search engines.

Search engines have always been a major way to get traffic for free. That is why you need to do your homework and optimize your site so that it ranks well for the keywords you target. SEO is still the most powerful way to get traffic for free and you really need to invest some time and efforts in the optimization of your site. SEO is not that difficult and if you want to get familiar with it in a nutshell, check our SEO Tutorial. If you are too busy for that, you can start with the 15 Minute SEO article.

2. Frequently update the contents of your site. .

If you expected some shocking secrets revealed, you might be a bit disappointed. One of the first steps in getting traffic for free is trivial but vital – get great content and frequently update it. In terms of SEO, content is king. If your content is good and frequently updated you will not only build a loyal audience of recurring visitors, who will often come to see what is new, but search engines will also love your site.

3. Take advantage of social bookmarking sites.

Social bookmarking sites (especially the most popular among them) are another powerful way to get traffic for free. If you want to learn how to do it, check the How to get Traffic from Social Bookmarking sites article, where we have explained what to do if you want to get free traffic from sites such as Digg, Delicious, etc.

4. Use your Twitter and Facebook accounts.

Social networks are also a way to get traffic for free. If you are popular on networks, such as Twitter or Facebook, the traffic you get from there can easily surpass the traffic from Google and the other search engines. It is true that building a large network of targeted followers on Twitter and supporters on Facebook takes a lot of time and effort but generally the result is worth.

5. Get links with other sites in your niche.

Another way to get traffic for free is from other sites in your niche. Getting links with other sites in your niche is also good for SEO, especially if you manage to get links without the famous nofollow attribute. But even if the links are nofollow (i.e. they are useless for SEO), they still help to get traffic to your site. If you manage to put your link in a visible place on a site with high volumes of traffic, you can get thousands of hits from this link alone. If you need list of sites within your niche where you could get backlinks from, check the Backlink Builder tool. However, be careful if you exchange links because linking to bad neighbors can do you a lot of harm.

6. Use any chance to promote your site for free.

Free promotion is always welcome, so don't neglect it. There are many ways to promote your site for free and some of the most popular ones include free classified ads, submissions to directories, inclusion in various listings, etc. It is true that not all free ways to promote your site work well but if you select the right places to promote your site for free, this can also result in tons of traffic.

7. Create a free product or service.

Content drives most traffic when you offer something useful. There are many types of useful content you can create and they largely depend on the niche of your site. You can have articles with tons of advice, or short tips but one of the most powerful ways to get traffic is to create a free product or service. When this product or service gets popular and people start visiting your site, chances are that they will visit the other sections of the site as well.

8. Use viral content.

Free products and services are great for getting free traffic to your site and one of the best varieties in this aspect is viral content. Viral content is called so because it distributes like a virus – i.e. when users like your content, they send it to their friends, post it on various sites, and promote it for free in many different ways. Viral content distributes on its own and your only task is to create it and submit it to a couple of popular sites. After that users pick it and distribute it for you. Viral content can be a hot video or a presentation but it can also be a good old article or an image.

9. Use offline promotion.

Offline promotion is frequently forgotten but it is also a way to get traffic for free. Yes, computers are everywhere and many people spend more time online than offline but still life hasn't moved completely on the Web. Offline promotion is also very powerful and if you know how to use it, this can also bring you many visitors. Some of the traditional offline ways to promote your site include printing its URL on your company's business cards and souvenirs or sticking it on your company vehicles. You can also start selling T-shirts and other merchandise with your logo and this way make your brand more popular.

10. Include your URL in your signature.

URLs in forum signatures are also a way to get traffic for free. There are forums, which get millions of visitors a day and if you are a popular user on such a forum, you can use this to get traffic to your site. When you post on forums and people like your posts, they tend to click the link to your site on your signature to learn more about you. In rare cases you might be able to post a deep link (i.e. a link to an internal page of the site) rather than a link to your homepage and this is also a way to focus attention to a particular page. Unfortunately, deep links are rarely allowed.

Getting traffic for free is a vast topic and it is not possible to list all the ways to do it. However, if you know the most important ways – i.e. the ways we discussed in this article and you apply them properly, it is guaranteed that you will be able to get lots of traffic for free. (Webconf.com)