Search Engine FAQ

Q: Do you know the most effective way to get a website on search engines without paying companies to do it? I have always thought that using meta tags would ensure that crawlers would find a site. Isn't that true?

A: Since the title is SO important, make sure it contains all of the primary keywords that are important: and, if a geographical location is important, enter that as well.

A good example of proper <title> use for a car rental business:

Instead of entering <title> Joe's auto dealership </title>,

enter this;

<title>Joe Banks Automotive, car, truck, SUV, rental, sales and repairs – Mankato, MN 56001</title>

For this example, be sure to include, "Joe Banks". This is a unique string that the business owner can tell possible clients to search for that will assure a hit. He or she might say, "Search for Joe Banks Automotive Mankato."

Q: I've got a mirror page (or site) on a different domain. Won't that help raise search results for that page (or site)?

A: Sometimes search engines will produce negative results if the exact page is represented in more than one context. For example, if http://www.mnsu.edu/test.html is EXACTLY the same as http://mankato.mnscu.edu/test.html, then the "test.html" document will be LESS important on both sites.