Before I start collecting feedback on the Bigdaddy data center, I want to talk a little bit about canonicalization, www vs. non-www, redirects, duplicate urls, 302 “hijacking,” etc. so that we’re all on the same page.

Q: What is a canonical url? Do you have to use such a weird word, anyway?
A: Sorry that it’s a strange word; that’s what we call it around Google. Canonicalization is the process of picking the best url when there are several choices, and it usually refers to home pages. For example, most people would consider these the same urls:

• www.example.com
• example.com/
• www.example.com/index.html
• example.com/home.asp

But technically all of these urls are different. A web server could return completely different content for all the urls above. When Google “canonicalizes” a url, we try to pick the url that seems like the best representative from that set.

Q: So how do I make sure that Google picks the url that I want?
A: One thing that helps is to pick the url that you want and use that url consistently across your entire site. For example, don’t make half of your links go to http://example.com/ and the other half go to http://www.example.com/ . Instead, pick the url you prefer and always use that format for your internal links.

Q: Is there anything else I can do?
A: Yes. Suppose you want your default url to be http://www.example.com/ . You can make your webserver so that if someone requests http://example.com/, it does a 301 (permanent) redirect to http://www.example.com/ . That helps Google know which url you prefer to be canonical. Adding a 301 redirect can be an especially good idea if your site changes often (e.g. dynamic content, a blog, etc.).

Q: If I want to get rid of domain.com but keep www.domain.com, should I use the url removal tool to remove domain.com?
A: No, definitely don’t do this. If you remove one of the www vs. non-www hostnames, it can end up removing your whole domain for six months. Definitely don’t do this. If you did use the url removal tool to remove your entire domain when you actually only wanted to remove the www or non-www version of your domain, do a reinclusion request and mention that you removed your entire domain by accident using the url removal tool and that you’d like it reincluded.

Q: I noticed that you don’t do a 301 redirect on your site from the non-www to the www version, Matt. Why not? Are you stupid in the head?
A: Actually, it’s on purpose. I noticed that several months ago but decided not to change it on my end or ask anyone at Google to fix it. I may add a 301 eventually, but for now it’s a helpful test case.

Q: So when you say www vs. non-www, you’re talking about a type of canonicalization. Are there other ways that urls get canonicalized?
A: Yes, there can be a lot, but most people never notice (or need to notice) them. Search engines can do things like keeping or removing trailing slashes, trying to convert urls with upper case to lower case, or removing session IDs from bulletin board or other software (many bulletin board software packages will work fine if you omit the session ID).

Q: Let’s talk about the inurl: operator. Why does everyone think that if inurl:mydomain.com shows results that aren’t from mydomain.com, it must be hijacked?
A: Many months ago, if you saw someresult.com/search2.php?url=mydomain.com, that would sometimes have content from mydomain. That could happen when the someresult.com url was a 302 redirect to mydomain.com and we decided to show a result from someresult.com. Since then, we’ve changed our heuristics to make showing the source url for 302 redirects much more rare. We are moving to a framework for handling redirects in which we will almost always show the destination url. Yahoo handles 302 redirects by usually showing the destination url, and we are in the middle of transitioning to a similar set of heuristics. Note that Yahoo reserves the right to have exceptions on redirect handling, and Google does too. Based on our analysis, we will show the source url for a 302 redirect less than half a percent of the time (basically, when we have strong reason to think the source url is correct).

Q: Okay, how about supplemental results. Do supplemental results cause a penalty in Google?
A: Nope.

Q: I have some pages in the supplemental results that are old now. What should I do?
A: I wouldn’t spend much effort on them. If the pages have moved, I would make sure that there’s a 301 redirect to the new location of pages. If the pages are truly gone, I’d make sure that you serve a 404 on those pages. After that, I wouldn’t put any more effort in. When Google eventually recrawls those pages, it will pick up the changes, but because it can take longer for us to crawl supplemental results, you might not see that update for a while.

Recently Google has released a new algorithmic solution for better search experience so that you can directly jump to the information you want right from the search snippets. It’s good news for web searchers, because they can get directly to what they are looking for. But, what’s in it for SEO experts and web designers?

New Google Search Snippet Explained

From a searcher viewpoint, when you enter a page with long textual content in it, a kind of “table of content” with links to subtopical sections within the same page can make navigation extremely easy at that page. At the top of the page, you realize what that page consists of, click on it and get to the information you want to read.

From Google viewpoint, the new algorithm has recently made it possible for different named anchors of your page (subtopic sections) to individually rank at search engine result pages (SERP). So, now you may look for something in Google and see that the Google search snippet (the descriptive sentences, phrases, etc under the title and above the URL) shows part of a webpage as a subotpic with a slightly different URL at the same page.

Such results are indicated by the phrase Jump to.

An Example of How Google Search Snippet Works!

I provide you with a list of search queries that all link to one webpage, but different topical sections of it:

• usual clothing in Iran
• tipping in Iran
• quality of foodstuff in Iran
• kinds of drinks in Iran
• electricity voltage in Iran

I think this example could show you to the heart of how Google search snippet functions. Without wasting time, you can jump to what you are looking for. But, there’s a great lesson here for the web designers, SEO experts, online marketers, etc.

An Amazing Strategy to Increase Search Engine Visibility

Now that you know how Google search snippet takes people directly to particular sections of some webpages, here’s some SEO tips you can use to get benefits from this new algorithmic solution to increase search engine visibility:

1. Plan to write comprehensive long articles, posts, textual content for your site/blog.
2. Divide your content into several suptopics, headings, etc.
3. Create named anchors to identify sections on your page.
4. Write a descriptive phrase for each section.
5. Make sure you use your keywords at these name anchors.

Such strategy could be implemented at FAQ pages, Help pages, About Me Page, etc as well. You can use this strategy at any page with lots of information that could be categorized fall into subtopics.

Benefits of Dividing a Page into Several Sections

When you click on a link in such pages with named anchors, the URL of the page changes somewhat: the anchor text is added to the page URL. So, it is treated like a different page. So, your the page with such named anchors is seemingly divided into several other pages. When you include a keyphrase at each subtopic and write extensively about it under that subtopic, because it’s linked from the top of the page, an internal linking is also enhanced within the page. It will also include the keyword in it.

So, when you write about a general topic and divide it into several subtopic, each with a different keyphrase, the page is divided into several subpages that could help you increase search engine visibility for that page. What happens, at the end of the day, will be to get ranked for different subtopics of the same page. Consequently chances increase for that page to show up in the SERP due to the different sections individually ranking highly for their own keyphrases.

Eventually, you add to the search engine visibility of your pages by implementing such strategy.

If you are looking to promote your business online, you will get benefited from Social Bookmarking. This is a marketing tool which is far more productive than the other traditional methods of promoting. It is an important tool for any online business owner to know, master and take advantage of in order to succeed in their growing online business. Social Bookmarking is now one of the most recent trends online to help you in spreading your voice and presence across the Internet. It is basically a simple and easy yet very resourceful innovation. You would be having an option in which you could share your bookmarks with the wider Internet. Make your favorite websites and web pages available, with comment. This is a good way to promote your own business website to the millions of people that use these sites.

Social Bookmarking is a novel method of locating, storing and sharing files and data among online users, and also allows registered users to store their ‘favorite’ web-links. In most cases, the lists that are created by users of a specific bookmarking network may either be designated as public or private in nature. If the lists are public in nature, then other users would be able to locate and view the links. These lists can be searched randomly, by tags, popularity, or category, tags.

Advantages Of Social Bookmarking:

1. Social Bookmarking websites drive qualified traffic and would also increase your link popularity, because search engines “index” the pages within these sites, and will see the links to your website.
2. Social Bookmarking helps in quick indexing by the search engines.
3. The best way to drive instant traffic to your website. This is the only method which helps to boost the traffic of the website, making it easier to spread your online business’ Web content.

Sites I would recommend:

1. Delicious
2. Digg
3. StumbleUpon
4. Yahoo Buzz
5. Technorati
6. Kaboodle
7. Mixx
8. Propeller
9. Reddit
10. Newsvine

Tips of Successful Bookmarking:

1. Create Accounts in all the bookmarking sites which have good reputation in WWW.
2. Concentrate on building reputation by adding/communicating with other members.
3. Organize your tags well. Try and keep them simple. That makes it easier for the other users to find you.

How to implement the 301 Redirect at htaccess level:

Procedure:

1. To create a .htaccess file, open notepad, name and save the file as .htaccess (there is no extension).

2. If you already have a .htaccess file on your server, download it to your desktop for editing.

3. Place this code in your .htaccess file:

redirect 301 /old/old.htm http://www.you.com/new.htm

4. If the .htaccess file already has lines of code in it, skip a line, then add the above code.

5. Save the .htaccess file

6. Upload this file to the root folder of your server.

7. Test it by typing in the old address to the page you've changed. You should be immediately taken to the new location.

Notes: Don't add "http://www" to the first part of the statement - place the path from the top level of your site to the page. Also ensure that you leave a single space between these elements:

redirect 301 (the instruction that the page has moved) /old/old.htm (the original folder path and file name) http://www.you.com/new.htm (new path and file name)

When the search engines spider your site again they will follow the rule you have created in our .htaccess file. The search engine spider doesn't actually read the .htaccess file, but recognizes the response from the server as valid.

During the next update, the old file name and path will be dropped and replaced with the new one. Sometimes you may see alternating old/new file names during the transition period, plus some fluctuations in rankings. According to Google it will take 6-8 weeks to see the changes reflected on your pages.

Other ways to implement the 301 redirect:

1. To redirect ALL files on your domain use this in your .htaccess file if you are on a unix web server:

redirectMatch 301 ^(.*)$ http://www.domain.com

redirectMatch permanent ^(.*)$ http://www.domain.com

You can also use one of these in your .htaccess file:

redirect 301 /index.html http://www.domain.com/index.html
redirect permanent /index.html http://www.domain.com/index.html
redirectpermanent /index.html http://www.domain.com/index.html

This will redirect "index.html" to another domain using a 301-Moved permanently redirect.

2. If you need to redirect http://mysite.com to http://www.mysite.com and you've got mod_rewrite enabled on your server you can put this in your .htaccess file:

Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^example\.com
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.example.com/$1 [R=permanent,L]

or this:

Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^domain\.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.domain.com/$1 [R=301,L]

Tip: Use your full URL (ie http://www.domain.com) when obtaining incoming links to your site. Also use your full URL for the internal linking of your site.

3. If you want to redirect your .htm pages to .php pages and you've got mod_rewrite enabled on your server you can put this in your .htaccess file:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule (.*).htm$ /$1.php

4. If you wish to redirect your .html or .htm pages to .shtml pages because you are using Server Side Includes.

(SSI) add this code to your .htaccess file:

AddType text/html .shtml
AddHandler server-parsed .shtml .html .htm
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks Includes
DirectoryIndex index.shtml index.html

IIS Redirect

• In internet services manager, right click on the file or folder you wish to redirect
• Select the radio titled "a redirection to a URL".
• Enter the redirection page
• Check "The exact url entered above" and the "A permanent redirection for this resource"
• Click on 'Apply'

ColdFusion Redirect

<.cfheader statuscode="301" statustext="Moved permanently">
<.cfheader name="Location" value="http://www.new-url.com">

PHP Redirect

Header( "HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently" );
Header( "Location: http://www.new-url.com" );
?>

ASP Redirect

<%@ Language=VBScript %>
<%
Response.Status="301 Moved Permanently"
Response.AddHeader "Location","http://www.new-url.com/"
%>

ASP .NET Redirect

JSP (Java) Redirect

<%
response.setStatus(301);
response.setHeader( "Location", "http://www.new-url.com/" );
response.setHeader( "Connection", "close" );
%>

CGI PERL Redirect

$q = new CGI;
print $q->redirect("http://www.new-url.com/");

Ruby on Rails Redirect

def old_action
headers["Status"] = "301 Moved Permanently"
redirect_to "http://www.new-url.com/"
end

HTML Redirect

The HTML redirect allows to introduce a delay before the redirection is performed. It is sometimes called “META refresh” redirect.

Browsers will display the page during the specified time and then move forward to the page pointed to by the redirection.

HTML Redirect Source Code

…
seconds;URL=the-other-url">
…


…

Seconds: the number of seconds the page is displayed, before performing the redirection.

the-other-url : any absolute or relative URL that will be displayed after the delay has expired.

It is recommended that a standard link be added in the page for the few users of browsers that do not automatically follow redirections.

Examples of HTML Redirects

<META HTTP-EQUIV="refresh" CONTENT="5;URL=the-other-page.html">
The redirecting page will be displayed during 5 seconds. After this 5 seconds delay, it will be replaced by “the-other-page.html”.

<META HTTP-EQUIV="refresh" CONTENT="12;URL=http://www.homepage.com/">
The redirecting page will be displayed during 12 seconds. After this 12 seconds delay, it will be replaced by the home page of this site.

<META HTTP-EQUIV="refresh" CONTENT="0;URL=another-page.html">
The redirecting page will be displayed and immediately replaced by “another-page.html”. With this zero-delay, many users will not even notice the presence of the redirecting page.

Request received, continuing process.

This class of status code indicates a provisional response, consisting only of the Status-Line and optional headers, and is terminated by an empty line. Since HTTP/1.0 did not define any 1xx status codes, servers must not send a 1xx response to an HTTP/1.0 client except under experimental conditions.

100 Continue

This means that the server has received the request headers, and that the client should proceed to send the request body (in the case of a request for which a body needs to be sent; for example, a POST request). If the request body is large, sending it to a server when a request has already been rejected based upon inappropriate headers is inefficient. To have a server check if the request could be accepted based on the request's headers alone, a client must send Expect: 100-continue as a header in its initial request (see RFC 2616 §14.20 – Expect header) and check if a 100 Continue status code is received in response before continuing (or receive 417 Expectation Failed and not continue).

101 Switching Protocols

This means the requester has asked the server to switch protocols and the server is acknowledging that it will do so.

102 Processing

2xx Success

The action was successfully received, understood, and accepted.

This class of status code indicates that the client's request was successfully received, understood, and accepted.

200 OK

Standard response for successful HTTP requests. The actual response will depend on the request method used. In a GET request, the response will contain an entity corresponding to the requested resource. In a POST request the response will contain an entity describing or containing the result of the action.

201 Created

The request has been fulfilled and resulted in a new resource being created.

202 Accepted

The request has been accepted for processing, but the processing has not been completed. The request might or might not eventually be acted upon, as it might be disallowed when processing actually takes place.

203 Non-Authoritative Information (since HTTP/1.1)

The server successfully processed the request, but is returning information that may be from another source.

204 No Content

The server successfully processed the request, but is not returning any content.

205 Reset Content

The server successfully processed the request, but is not returning any content. Unlike a 204 response, this response requires that the requester reset the document view.

206 Partial Content

The server is delivering only part of the resource due to a range header sent by the client. This is used by tools like wget to enable resuming of interrupted downloads, or split a download into multiple simultaneous streams.

207 Multi-Status (WebDAV) (RFC 2518 )

The message body that follows is an XML message and can contain a number of separate response codes, depending on how many sub-requests were made.

3xx Redirection

The client must take additional action to complete the request.

This class of status code indicates that further action needs to be taken by the user agent in order to fulfil the request. The action required may be carried out by the user agent without interaction with the user if and only if the method used in the second request is GET or HEAD. A user agent should not automatically redirect a request more than five times, since such redirections usually indicate an infinite loop.

300 Multiple Choices

Indicates multiple options for the resource that the client may follow. It, for instance, could be used to present different format options for video, list files with different extensions, or word sense disambiguation.

301 Moved Permanently

This and all future requests should be directed to the given URI.

302 Found

This is the most popular redirect code, but also an example of industrial practice contradicting the standard. HTTP/1.0 specification (RFC 1945 ) required the client to perform a temporary redirect (the original describing phrase was "Moved Temporarily"), but popular browsers implemented it as a 303 See Other. Therefore, HTTP/1.1 added status codes 303 and 307 to disambiguate between the two behaviours. However, the majority of Web applications and frameworks still use the 302 status code as if it were the 303.

303 See Other (since HTTP/1.1)

The response to the request can be found under another URI using a GET method. When received in response to a PUT, it should be assumed that the server has received the data and the redirect should be issued with a separate GET message.

304 Not Modified

Indicates the resource has not been modified since last requested. Typically, the HTTP client provides a header like the If-Modified-Since header to provide a time against which to compare. Utilizing this saves bandwidth and reprocessing on both the server and client, as only the header data must be sent and received in comparison to the entirety of the page being re-processed by the server, then resent using more bandwidth of the server and client.

305 Use Proxy (since HTTP/1.1)

Many HTTP clients (such as Mozilla^[and Internet Explorer) do not correctly handle responses with this status code, primarily for security reasons.

306 Switch Proxy

No longer used.

307 Temporary Redirect (since HTTP/1.1)

In this occasion, the request should be repeated with another URI, but future requests can still use the original URI. In contrast to 303, the request method should not be changed when reissuing the original request. For instance, a POST request must be repeated using another POST request.

4xx Client Error

The request contains bad syntax or cannot be fulfilled.

The 4xx class of status code is intended for cases in which the client seems to have erred. Except when responding to a HEAD request, the server should include an entity containing an explanation of the error situation, and whether it is a temporary or permanent condition. These status codes are applicable to any request method. User agents should display any included entity to the user. These are typically the most common error codes encountered while online.

400 Bad Request

The request contains bad syntax or cannot be fulfilled.

401 Unauthorized

Similar to 403 Forbidden, but specifically for use when authentication is possible but has failed or not yet been provided. The response must include a WWW-Authenticate header field containing a challenge applicable to the requested resource. See Basic access authentication and Digest access authentication.

402 Payment Required

The original intention was that this code might be used as part of some form of digital cash or micropayment scheme, but that has not happened, and this code has never been used.

403 Forbidden

The request was a legal request, but the server is refusing to respond to it. Unlike a 401 Unauthorized response, authenticating will make no difference.

404 Not Found

The requested resource could not be found but may be available again in the future. Subsequent requests by the client are permissible.

405 Method Not Allowed

A request was made of a resource using a request method not supported by that resource; for example, using GET on a form which requires data to be presented via POST, or using PUT on a read-only resource.

406 Not Acceptable

The requested resource is only capable of generating content not acceptable according to the Accept headers sent in the request.

407 Proxy Authentication Required

408 Request Timeout

The server timed out waiting for the request.

409 Conflict

Indicates that the request could not be processed because of conflict in the request, such as an edit conflict.

410 Gone

Indicates that the resource requested is no longer available and will not be available again. This should be used when a resource has been intentionally removed; however, it is not necessary to return this code and a 404 Not Found can be issued instead. Upon receiving a 410 status code, the client should not request the resource again in the future. Clients such as search engines should remove the resource from their indexes.

411 Length Required

The request did not specify the length of its content, which is required by the requested resource.

412 Precondition Failed

The server does not meet one of the preconditions that the requester put on the request.

413 Request Entity Too Large

The request is larger than the server is willing or able to process.

414 Request-URI Too Long

The URI provided was too long for the server to process.

415 Unsupported Media Type

The request did not specify any media types that the server or resource supports. For example the client specified that an image resource should be served as image/svg+xml, but the server cannot find a matching version of the image.

416 Requested Range Not Satisfiable

The client has asked for a portion of the file, but the server cannot supply that portion (for example, if the client asked for a part of the file that lies beyond the end of the file).

417 Expectation Failed

The server cannot meet the requirements of the Expect request-header field.

418 I'm a teapot

The HTCPCP server is a teapot. The responding entity MAY be short and stout. Defined by the April Fools' specification RFC 2324. See Hyper Text Coffee Pot Control Protocol for more information.

422 Unprocessable Entity (WebDAV) (RFC 4918 )

The request was well-formed but was unable to be followed due to semantic errors.

423 Locked (WebDAV) (RFC 4918 )

The resource that is being accessed is locked

424 Failed Dependency (WebDAV) (RFC 4918 )

The request failed due to failure of a previous request (e.g. a PROPPATCH).

425 Unordered Collection

Defined in drafts of WebDav Advanced Collections, but not present in "Web Distributed Authoring and Versioning (WebDAV) Ordered Collections Protocol" (RFC 3648 ).

426 Upgrade Required (RFC 2817 )

The client should switch to TLS/1.0.

449 Retry With

A Microsoft extension. The request should be retried after doing the appropriate action.

5xx Server Error

The server failed to fulfil an apparently valid request.

Response status codes beginning with the digit "5" indicate cases in which the server is aware that it has encountered an error or is otherwise incapable of performing the request. Except when responding to a HEAD request, the server should include an entity containing an explanation of the error situation, and indicate whether it is a temporary or permanent condition. Likewise, user agents should display any included entity to the user. These response codes are applicable to any request method.

500 Internal Server Error

A generic error message, given when no more specific message is suitable.

501 Not Implemented

The server either does not recognise the request method, or it lacks the ability to fulfil the request.

502 Bad Gateway

The server was acting as a gateway or proxy and received an invalid response from the upstream server.

503 Service Unavailable

The server is currently unavailable (because it is overloaded or down for maintenance). Generally, this is a temporary state.

504 Gateway Timeout

The server was acting as a gateway or proxy and did not receive a timely request from the upstream server.

505 HTTP Version Not Supported

The server does not support the HTTP protocol version used in the request.

506 Variant Also Negotiates (RFC 2295 )

Transparent content negotiation for the request, results in a circular reference.

507 Insufficient Storage (WebDAV) (RFC 4918 )

509 Bandwidth Limit Exceeded (Apache bw/limited extension)

This status code, while used by many servers, is not specified in any RFCs.

510 Not Extended (RFC 2774 )

Further extensions to the request are required for the server to fulfil it.

Facebook.com: Was initially intended for college students -- it branched out, and now allows everyone membership. 150 million members.

MySpace.com: 191 million members. This site is massive, boasting the largest membership of any social networking site on the Internet.

Linkedin.com: 12.5 million members -- a powerful tool for business networking.

Friendster.com: 29 million members. Friendster was considered the top online social networking service until around April 2004, when it was overtaken by MySpace. Demographic studies indicate users are from 17 to 30 years old.

Stumbleupon.com: Boasting 2.75 million users, StumbleUpon is a web browser plugin that allows its users to discover and rate webpages, photos, videos, and news articles. A great way to get website promotion. Bought by eBay for $75 million in May 2007.

del.icio.us: The website del.icio.us (pronounced as "delicious") is a social bookmarking web service for storing, sharing, and discovering web bookmarks. The site was founded by Joshua Schachter in late 2003, and is now part of Yahoo!.

digg.com: Digg is a website made for people to discover and share content from anywhere on the Internet, by submitting links and stories, and voting and commenting on submitted links and stories, in a social and democratic spirit.

Orkut.com: Orkut is an Internet social networking service run by Google and named after its creator, Google employee Orkut Büyükkökten. It claims to be designed to help users meet new friends and maintain existing relationships. Now has a membership of 57 million.

Twitter.com: A free social networking service that allows users to send "updates" (text-based posts that are up to 140 characters long) via SMS, instant messaging, email, the Twitter website, or an application such as Twitterrific. The site has become very popular in only a few months -- a lot of people are watching it.

Classmates.com: 40 million members. One of the oldest social networking sites around, Classmates was kicked off in 1995, and has proven to be a great way for members to to connect with old friends and acquaintances from throughout their lives.

Meetup.com: 2 million members. Meetup.com is an online social networking portal that facilitates offline group meetings in various localities around the world. Meetup allows members to find and join groups unified by a common interest, such as politics, books, games, movies, health, pets, careers or hobbies.

Yahoo! 360° (a.k.a Yahoo! Days) is a personal communication portal similar to orkut and MySpace -- it is currently in the beta-testing phase. It integrates features of social networking, blogging and photo sharing sites.

Xanga.com: 40 million members. Xanga is a free Web-based service that hosts weblogs, photoblogs, videoblogs, audioblogs, and social networking profiles.

Care2.com: 7.2 million members. Care2 is a social networking website that was founded to help connect activists from around the world.

Ryze.com: .25 million members. Ryze.com is a free social networking website designed to link business professionals.

In all, there are over 100 social networking sites on the Internet. Some of the other social networking sites that I have not included in the list above are:

Bebo, BlackPlanet.com, Flickr.com, Reunion.com, aSmallWorld, Bebo, BlackPlanet.com, Blue Dot, Bolt, Broadcaster.com, Buzznet, CarDomain, Consumating, Couchsurfing, Cyworld, Dandelife, DeadJournal, DontStayIn, Doostang, Ecademy, eSPIN, Faceparty, Flickr, Flirtomatic, Fotki, Friends Reunited, Gaia Online, Geni.com, GoPets, Graduates.com, Grono.net, Hyves, imeem, Infield Parking, IRC-Galleria, iWiW, Joga, Bonito, Last.fm, LibraryThing, LiveJournal, LunarStorm, MEETin, MiGente.com, Mixi, MOG, Multiply, My Opera Community, myYearbook, Netlog, Nexopia, OUTeverywhere, Passado, Piczo, Playahead, ProfileHeaven, Pownce, RateItAll, Reunion.com, Searchles, Sconex, Shelfari, Soundpedia, Sportsvite, Studivz, TagWorld, TakingITGlobal, The Doll Palace, The Student Center, Threadless, TravBuddy.com, Travellerspoint, Tribe.net, Vampire Freaks, Vox, WAYN, WebBiographies, Windows Live Spaces, Woophy, XING, Xuqa, Yelp, Zaadz, Zooomr

Near the top of your page, you should use your primary keywords in an (H1) header tag. Google gives extra weight to text located within header tags when computing PR. Also use a couple of (H2) tags on your page because they count as well (although not as much as the (H1).

Here is an example of an (H1) tag:

(H1)Distinctive birdhouses and birdfeeders(/H1)

An (H2) tag would look like this:

(H2)We offer the finest in handcrafted birdhouses
and birdfeeders(/H2)

Photos do not help your ranking. But you can use tags to describe your photos. If you can use a keyword or two in your tag that is even better. but be careful here that your tag accurately describes the photo or Google may consider it to be SPAM which of course is not good. Here is an example of an tag:

tags are intended to give a description of a photo in cases where the web browser either cannot display photos or the photo display option has been turned off. If you use these tags properly, your site's visitors will be able to see the description of an un-displayed photo (a good thing). But even more importantly your tags will help your search engine ranking.

(a)As detailed in the previous section, a web page's Google PageRank is very important for several reasons, not the least of which is getting high rankings in the search results.

There is really only one way to increase a page's PR: Get more inbound links!

While almost any inbound link will help boost a page's PR, there are three exceptions:

1 - An inbound link from a page with a Google PageRank of zero (PR0) doesn't provide any help in boosting your own page's PR.

2 - A link that the Googlebot spider cannot follow won't provide a PR boost for your page either. These typically include links that are generated from a database by a CGI script as well as various forms of javascript generated links. As a general rule, static text links can always be followed. These include regular links with the (a)... tag.

3 - Links from a page that has excluded Googlebot via the robots.txt file or with a "no follow" robots meta tag don't provide a PR boost.

A link from any page with a Google PageRank of 1 or higher will help increase your page's ranking, but links from higher PR pages provide a much larger boost. Whenever possible, try to get links from pages that are at PR5 or better.