SEO SMO LAB: Google Webmaster Tools

Our major search engine Google changes its search algorithm around 500–600 times each year. Apart from Google, all other search engines change their algorithm time to time.

Essential techniques to develop successful SEO strategies for increasing website ranking and visitors:

1. Hosted on dedicated IP

I notice all high rank website is used dedicated IP, I think it’s too good among them used shared. Actually there are two aspects to the SEO argument for dedicated IPs: ranking and spam. Google does use IP addresses in some of its calculations. And also a dedicated IP can help increase your site’s speed. And another major point is that dedicated IP is mandatory to get SSL certificate for your site.

2. Used canonical tag “rule sets” on all pages

Canonical tags are used to declare a single page as its own source or for duplicate pages to reference their source page. Like example.com redirect to www.example.com by the help of .htaccess file or used <link rel=”canonical” href=”URL” /> in head section.

3. Avoid using session ids in urls

Session IDs are most common in e-commerce sites and are embedded in a URL so the websites can track their customers page wise and they are used keep track of items in a customer shopping cart. But these IDs cause problems for search engine spiders because they create a large number of links for the spider to crawl. By using a canonical tag you can solve this problem.

4. Supports a custom robots.txt file

Robots.txt file tells the search engines which pages to index from your website or not indexed. You can find the robots.txt at an address like this: http://www.example.com/robots.txt, Basic robots.txt example:-

User-agent: *

Disallow: /folder/

Disallow: /file.html

Disallow: /image.png

5. Used XML Sitemap

After panda algorithm update, XML sitemap is very much helpful for indexing your web page with search engine. Sitemaps inform to search engines what pages on website are available for crawling. You can find the Sitemap at an address like this: http://www.example.com/sitemap.xml

Basic Sitemap example:-

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">

<url>

<loc>http://www.domain.com/</loc>

<lastmod>2016-01-01</lastmod>

<changefreq>daily</changefreq>

<priority>0.1</priority>

</url>

</urlset>

6. Supports basic viewport features

Today a huge amount of people used mobile and like that device (i.e. Tablet). So audience can visit from their device into your website. Below features are required for mobile-friendly viewport

Loads fast – bloated sites cost more money to access
Easy to read – mobile phone screens are 1/5th the size of desktop computers
Easy to navigate – menus have limited space on mobile devices
Minimal scrolling - not just vertically but also horizontally
Avoids using Flash – because Apple products do not support Flash
Google’s has been updating their mobile-friendly algorithm April 21, 2015. You can visit https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/ for test your website mobile-friendly or not.

7. Allows (non-secure) JS and CSS to be indexed

At times, we may get errors from Google webmaster stating “Googlebot cannot access CSS and JS files on example.com”. A Googlebot finds out whether a page is mobile-friendly or not with the help of JavaScript and CSS. You can identify whether the JS and CSS files are indexed by clicking on the “Blocked Resources” option shown under the “Google Index” list of Google webmaster tools.

8. Supports ad hoc 301 redirect mapping

The 301 redirects are used for moving urls permanently. There are several different scenarios where the use of 301 redirects is recommended. Here’s a list with some of the most common scenarios:

Moving to a new domain (see domain.biz > domaininternet.com example)
Cleaning up dynamic URLs and redirecting them to shorter search engine friendly versions
Preventing duplicate content problems caused by www and non-www website.

9. Supports navigation plain HTML text
Create web page internal link navigation in simple coding. HTML and CSS are your safest approach. Coding in JavaScript, Flash, and Ajax will limit the crawler’s ability to cover a full website.

10. SEO Friendly URL

SEO friendly URL means URL easily understood by search engine Spider. Hence on most occasions CMS based websites use system generated URLs for web pages which are difficult for the search engine spiders to read and interpret what the content on these pages are about.

For example: www.example.com/index.php?category_id=125&page_id=78 (Not a SEO Friendly URL)

SEO Friendly URL example:

www.example.com/SEO/SEO-friendly-URL

11. Navigation Structure

People read a webpage from left to right, so the informative pages should be on the left and the “Contact Us” page should be on the furthest right with the exception of the “Homepage”. The link to your “Homepage” should always be at the beginning of your navigation menu.

A typical navigation menu’s order will follow:

<Home> <About Us> <Products/Services> <Contact Us>

Some other Tips for Website SEO Friendly Navigation:

Link the Logo to the Home Page.
Find the necessary information and destination within maximum 3 click
Navigation needs to be clear, structured and intuitive.
It is best to have 4 - 15 links on the navigation bars
HTML Sitemaps are also very important because they are used so to link to all the available web pages for user.
Don’t use underline, bold, color or italics text that is not a link.
Service views must be shown category wise

12. Meta tags and content headers customized on a per-page basis
Each page’s meta tag like title and description should be unique and relevant to the page it represents. Duplicate title and description might be confused SERP.

13. Custom 404 page
“Error 404 – Page Not Found” is a common webpage error. If you removed any page from our website then this error will be shown in web browser, it is harmful for web users as well search engine spider. For this issue we create a default 404 page on our site, redirect all 404 error page.

14. Location with Google Map

If your website has any service base, then use location and address with Google map pointing. It will be on contract us page. It helps in local ranking and mobile search ranking.

It's advisable that the storefinder landing pages show the store names in a map alongside their respective locations.

15. Caters to more than one location or language
If your site is meant to target global audiences markets means more than one country then try to used county wish language option.

16. And Some other SEO requirements

Server response time within 500ms (<200ms, ideally).
Server supports browser with caching, file compression, minification of JS and CSS.
Home page able to “live” at domain root ( Don’t used example.com/abc/home/index.html, for example).
Category and Subcategory pages are able to include up to 500 words of text copy above/below the product grid.
Use breadcrumbs on e-commerce category, subcategory and product pages.
Use Organization, Product, Local Business and Breadcrumb schema markup on appropriate pages.
Use product ratings and reviews (or at least inclusion of a third-party rating/review system).
Use Open Graph tags on all pages (syntax-based OK).
Use inclusion of social sharing buttons on product and services pages.
Tries to keep URL character limit 100><115
Social Media Activities
Unique Web content
W3c validation
Image Alt tag text
No broken links

Google Algorithm Updates of 2002
#	Date	Update	Update type	Noticeable effect
1	September, 2002	First Algorithm Update	Unclear	No estimate given


Google Algorithm Updates of 2003
#	Date	Update	Update type	Noticeable effect
1	February, 2003	Boston	Ranking signals	No estimate given
2	April, 2003	Cassandra	Ranking signals	No estimate given
3	May, 2003	Dominic	Ranking signals	No estimate given
4	June, 2003	Esmerelda	Infrastructure	No estimate given
5	July, 2003	Fritz	Infrastructure	No estimate given
6	16-Nov-03	Florida	Ranking signals	No estimate given


Google Algorithm Updates of 2004
#	Date	Update	Update type	Noticeable effect
1	23-Jan-04	Austin	Ranking signals	No estimate given
2	Feb, 2004	Brandy	Ranking signals	No estimate given


Google Algorithm Updates of 2005
#	Date	Update	Update type	Noticeable effect
1	Feb, 2005	Allegra	Ranking signals	No estimate given
2	May, 2005	Bourbon	Ranking signals	No estimate given
3	Sept, 2005	Gilligan	Data refresh	No estimate given
4	Oct, 2005	Jagger	Ranking signals	No estimate given
5	Dec, 2005	Bigdaddy	Infrastructure	None


Google Algorithm Updates of 2007
#	Date	Update	Update type	Noticeable effect
1	June, 2007	Buffy	Ranking signals	No estimate given


Google Algorithm Updates of 2009
#	Date	Update	Update type	Noticeable effect
1	Feb, 2009	Vince	Ranking signals	No estimate given
2	10-Aug-09	Caffeine (Preview)	Infrastructure	None


Google Algorithm Updates of 2010
#	Date	Update	Update type	Noticeable effect
1	3-May-10	May Day	Ranking signals	No estimate given
2	8-Jun-10	Caffeine	Infrastructure	None


Google Algorithm Updates of 2011
#	Date	Update	Update type	Noticeable effect
1	28-Jan-11	Attribution Update	First launch	0.5% of searches
2	24-Feb-11	Panda — 1.0 (#1)	First launch	11.8% of US searches
3	30-Mar-11	The +1 Button	New feature	-
4	11-Apr-11	Panda — 2.0 (#2)	Ranking signals	2% of US searches
5	9-May-11	Panda — 2.1 (#3)	Unclear	No estimate given
6	2-Jun-11	Schema.org	New feature	No estimate given
7	21-Jun-11	Panda — 2.2 (#4)	Ranking signals	No estimate given
8	23-Jul-11	Panda — 2.3 (#5)	Ranking signals	No estimate given
9	12-Aug-11	Panda — 2.4 (#6)	Ranking signals	6% - 9% of searches
10	28-Sep-11	Panda — 2.5 (#7)	Unclear	No estimate given
11	5-Oct-11	Panda — Flux incl 3 (#8)	Ranking signals	2% of searches
12	18-Oct-11	Query Encryption	New feature	None
13	3-Nov-11	Freshness Update	First launch	6% - 10% of searches
14	14-Nov-11	November 10-Pack	Ranking signals	No estimate given
15	18-Nov-11	Panda — 3.1 (#9)	Data refresh	1% of searches
16	1-Dec-11	December 10-Pack	Ranking signals	No estimate given


Google Algorithm Updates of 2012
#	Date	Update	Update type	Noticeable effect
1	5-Jan-12	January 30-Pack	Algorithm change	No estimate given
2	10-Jan-12	Search + Your World	New feature	No estimate given
3	18-Jan-12	Panda — 3.2 (#10)	Data refresh	No estimate given
4	19-Jan-12	Page Layout #1	First launch	1% of searches globally
5	3-Feb-12	February 17-Pack	Algorithm change	No estimate given
6	27-Feb-12	February 40-Pack	Algorithm change	No estimate given
7	27-Feb-12	Panda — 3.3 (#11)	Data refresh	No estimate given
8	27-Feb-12	Venice	First launch	No estimate given
9	23-Mar-12	Panda — 3.4 (#12)	Data refresh	1.6% of searches
10	3-Apr-12	March 50-Pack	Ranking signals	No estimate given
11	16-Apr-12	Parked Domain Bug	Algorithm error	No estimate given
12	19-Apr-12	Panda — 3.5 (#13)	Data refresh	No estimate given
13	24-Apr-12	Penguin — 1.0 (#1)	First launch	3.1% of English searches
14	27-Apr-12	Panda — 3.6 (#14)	Data refresh	No estimate given
15	4-May-12	April 52-Pack	Ranking signals	No estimate given
16	16-May-12	Knowledge Graph (#1)	New Feature	No estimate given
17	25-May-12	Penguin — 1.1 (#2)	Data refresh	0.1 % of English searches
18	7-Jun-12	May 39-Pack	Ranking signals	No estimate given
19	9-Jun-12	Panda — 3.7 (#15)	Data refresh	1% US & 1% global
20	25-Jun-12	Panda — 3.8 (#16)	Data refresh	1% of global searches
21	24-Jul-12	Panda — 3.9 (#17)	Data refresh	1% of searches
22	10-Aug-12	June/July 86-Pack	Ranking signals	No estimate given
23	10-Aug-12	DMCA (Pirate) Filter	Ranking signals	No estimate given
24	14-Aug-12	7 Search Results	New feature	No estimate given
25	19-Aug-12	Panda — 3.9.1 (#18)	Data refresh	1% of searches
26	14-Sep-12	Domain Diversity	Data refresh	No estimate given
27	18-Sep-12	Panda — 3.9.2 (#19)	Data refresh	0.7% of searches
28	27-Sep-12	Panda — #20	Ranking signals	2.4% of English searches
29	28-Sep-12	Exact Match Domains	First launch	0.6% of En-US searches
30	4-Oct-12	Aug/Sep 65-Pack	Ranking signals	No estimate given
31	5-Oct-12	Penguin 1.2 (#3)	Data refresh	0.3% of English searches
32	9-Oct-12	Page Layout #2	Data refresh	0.7% of English searches
33	5-Nov-12	Panda — #21	Data refresh	1.1% of English searches
34	21-Nov-12	Panda — #22	Data refresh	0.8% of English searches
35	4-Dec-12	Knowledge Graph #2	Expansion	No estimate given
36	21-Dec-12	Panda — #23	Data refresh	1.3% of English searches


Google Algorithm Updates of 2013
#	Date	Update	Update type	Noticeable effect
1	22-Jan-13	Panda — #24	Data refresh	1.2% of English searches
2	4-Feb-13	Toolbar PR #22	Toolbar PR Update	-
3	14-Mar-13	Panda — #25	Data refresh	No estimate given
4	9-May-13	"Phantom"	Ranking Signals	No estimate given
5	21-May-13	Domain Crowding	Ranking Signals	No estimate given
6	22-May-13	Penguin — 2.0 (#4)	Ranking Signals	2.3% of En-US searches
7	11-Jun-13	"Payday Loan"	Ranking Signals	0.3% of En-US, 4% Turk
8	27-Jun-13	Multi-week	Ranking Signals	No estimate given
9	18-Jul-13	Panda Recovery	Ranking Signals	No estimate given
10	20-Aug-13	Hummingbird	Infrastructure	0.9
11	4-Oct-13	Penguin 2.1 — (#5)	Data Refresh	1% of searches
12	6-Dec-13	Toolbar PR #23	Toolbar PR Update	-


Google Algorithm Updates of 2014
#	Date	Update	Update type	Noticeable effect
1	6-Feb-14	Page Layout #3	Data Refresh	Unspecified
2	17-May-14	Payday Loan 2.0	Ranking Signals	0.2% of English searches
3	20-May-14	Panda 4.0	Ranking Signals	7.5% of English searches
4	12-Jun-14	Payday Loan 3.0	Ranking Signals	Unspecified
5	24-Jul-14	Pigeon	Ranking Signals	Unspecified
6	23-Sep-14	Panda 4.1	Ranking Signals	3% - 5% (Location dependent)
7	17-Oct-14	Penguin 3.0	Data Refresh	<1% of US English searches
8	21-Oct-14	DMCA/Pirate 2	Ranking Signals	Unspecified
9	22-Dec-14	Pigeon 2	Ranking Signals	Unspecified


Google Algorithm Updates of 2015
#	Date	Update	Update type	Noticeable effect
1	21-Apr-15	Mobile-friendly Update	Ranking Signals	Unspecified
2	3-May-15	The Quality Update	Ranking Signals	Unspecified
3	18-Jul-15	Panda 4.2	Data Refresh	~2% - 3% English queries
4	2-Nov-15	Mobile-friendly 2	Ranking Signals	Unspecified

Our major search engine Google changes its search algorithm around 500–600 times each year. Apart from Google, all other search engines change their algorithm time to time.

Essential techniques to develop successful SEO strategies for increasing website ranking and visitors:

1. Hosted on dedicated IP

2. Used canonical tag “rule sets” on all pages

Canonical tags are used to declare a single page as its own source or for duplicate pages to reference their source page. Like example.com redirect to www.example.com by the help of .htaccess file or used <link rel=”canonical” href=”URL” /> in head section.

3. Avoid using session ids in urls

4. Supports a custom robots.txt file

Robots.txt file tells the search engines which pages to index from your website or not indexed. You can find the robots.txt at an address like this: http://www.example.com/robots.txt, Basic robots.txt example:-

User-agent: *

Disallow: /folder/

Disallow: /file.html

Disallow: /image.png

5. Used XML Sitemap

After panda algorithm update, XML sitemap is very much helpful for indexing your web page with search engine. Sitemaps inform to search engines what pages on website are available for crawling. You can find the Sitemap at an address like this: http://www.example.com/sitemap.xml

Basic Sitemap example:-

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">

<url>

<loc>http://www.domain.com/</loc>

<lastmod>2016-01-01</lastmod>

<changefreq>daily</changefreq>

<priority>0.1</priority>

</url>

</urlset>

6. Supports basic viewport features

Today a huge amount of people used mobile and like that device (i.e. Tablet). So audience can visit from their device into your website. Below features are required for mobile-friendly viewport

7. Allows (non-secure) JS and CSS to be indexed

8. Supports ad hoc 301 redirect mapping

The 301 redirects are used for moving urls permanently. There are several different scenarios where the use of 301 redirects is recommended. Here’s a list with some of the most common scenarios:

Moving to a new domain (see domain.biz > domaininternet.com example)Cleaning up dynamic URLs and redirecting them to shorter search engine friendly versionsPreventing duplicate content problems caused by www and non-www website.

9. Supports navigation plain HTML text Create web page internal link navigation in simple coding. HTML and CSS are your safest approach. Coding in JavaScript, Flash, and Ajax will limit the crawler’s ability to cover a full website.

10. SEO Friendly URL

SEO friendly URL means URL easily understood by search engine Spider. Hence on most occasions CMS based websites use system generated URLs for web pages which are difficult for the search engine spiders to read and interpret what the content on these pages are about.

For example: www.example.com/index.php?category_id=125&page_id=78 (Not a SEO Friendly URL)

SEO Friendly URL example:

11. Navigation Structure

People read a webpage from left to right, so the informative pages should be on the left and the “Contact Us” page should be on the furthest right with the exception of the “Homepage”. The link to your “Homepage” should always be at the beginning of your navigation menu.

A typical navigation menu’s order will follow:

<Home> <About Us> <Products/Services> <Contact Us>

Some other Tips for Website SEO Friendly Navigation:

12. Meta tags and content headers customized on a per-page basis Each page’s meta tag like title and description should be unique and relevant to the page it represents. Duplicate title and description might be confused SERP.

14. Location with Google Map

If your website has any service base, then use location and address with Google map pointing. It will be on contract us page. It helps in local ranking and mobile search ranking.

It's advisable that the storefinder landing pages show the store names in a map alongside their respective locations.

15. Caters to more than one location or language If your site is meant to target global audiences markets means more than one country then try to used county wish language option.

16. And Some other SEO requirements

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Moving to a new domain (see domain.biz > domaininternet.com example)
Cleaning up dynamic URLs and redirecting them to shorter search engine friendly versions
Preventing duplicate content problems caused by www and non-www website.

9. Supports navigation plain HTML text
Create web page internal link navigation in simple coding. HTML and CSS are your safest approach. Coding in JavaScript, Flash, and Ajax will limit the crawler’s ability to cover a full website.

12. Meta tags and content headers customized on a per-page basis
Each page’s meta tag like title and description should be unique and relevant to the page it represents. Duplicate title and description might be confused SERP.

15. Caters to more than one location or language
If your site is meant to target global audiences markets means more than one country then try to used county wish language option.