« MSN Keyword | Link Popularity: How to Check it and How to Improve it! »
April 15, 2000
Our AltaVista Recommendations
Here is a summary of our recommendations for optimizing webpages for the AltaVista search engine.
- Never optimize your pages for keywords that don't DIRECTLY apply to the content of that site. I've always stressed this in the past, and it's definitely AltaVista's biggest gripe. If you want to be absolutely safe, consider removing your meta keyword tag, at least for pages that could be found by AltaVista. There's no evidence that it helps your rankings on AltaVista since keywords placed in other areas of the page have a greater influence. In addition, Ingrid Schwartz of AltaVista sent this e-mail to a Webmaster who's site was dropped: "Make sure the meta tags **very exactly** match what's on your page - don't stretch it to try to get more users."
If you choose to keep your meta keyword tag, you might want to include only keywords that exist elsewhere on your page. Unfortunately, if AltaVista has taken the extreme step of requiring the meta keywords to also be on the page, they have completely defeated the primary purpose of a meta keyword tag. That is, to provide additional synonyms for the keyword content of the page. If you wish to create pages with meta keyword tags for engines that like them, while keeping them away from AltaVista, you could create a robots.txt file to tell AltaVista to not index pages where you have meta keyword tags or other content you think AltaVista might dislike.
Concerning the meta DESCRIPTION tag, it's important you keep it on your pages since it's often used to summarize your page in the search engine listings. However, in the case of AltaVista, you might be careful to primarily use words that appear elsewhere on the page. - Avoid excessive keyword repetition - How many keyword repetitions is too many? Well, we update our WebPosition Page Critic at least once a month, with the recommended statistics for each engine. That way, you know how many keyword repetitions (among other important tips) that top ranking pages include.
- Avoid duplicating content - AltaVista may now be looking for pages that are similar in content and banning sites that have duplicates or near-duplicates of pages on the same domain or across different domains. Therefore, I'd recommend you create a robots.txt file (http://www.webposition.com/mp-0399.htm#FIVE) to exclude any pages from AltaVista that are very similar to other pages, or remove the duplicates.
Even if there's a legitimate reason for the similarity between some pages, you don't want to risk breaking AltaVista's new rules. Of the 250 customers surveyed, a higher percentage of those who were banned also had duplicated or near-duplicated content somewhere on their site. - Don't over-submit - We've long advised to not submit more than five URLs per day to AltaVista. However, with AltaVista's more stringent rules, we're changing our recommendation to one URL per day. You may get away with five per day, but I wouldn't risk it at this time.
- Avoid the "bad" doorway pages - Some representatives at AltaVista state they don't like "...machine-generated pages with minimal or no content, whose sole purpose is to get a user to click to another page"
After surveying 250 customers who did and did not get dropped, using the WebPosition Reporter, Submitter, Traffic Analyzer, or optimizing pages using the Page Critic advice clearly does not cause problems. However, because of AltaVista's recent comments regarding "machine-generated pages" and customer survey statistics we collected, I'd recommend you remove or change any pages you created with the WebPosition Page Generator prior to version 1.40 (Posted on April 5th).
These generated pages had "boiler-plate" text that is the same for all generated pages that used the default template. In theory, this text could be discriminated against. For example, if you didn't change the default template, all generated pages included "If you are searching for any of the following topics" of which AltaVista could look for and red-flag under its new rules in theory. Therefore, if you have any pages using the phrases listed on the following page, remove or revise them as soon as possible:
http://www.webpositiongold.com/critichelp/avdoorway.htm
Version 1.40 now generates pages that are different for every customer. There's no common text to identify the page as "machine generated." Therefore, using the new Page Generator is no different than using Microsoft FrontPage to generate pages, and thereby will not cause problems. The key will be to create pages whose content is appealing to the search engine.
Keep in mind that AltaVista is banning some sites that have never even heard of a doorway page. Therefore, as always, education is the key to keeping within everyone's rules. This newsletter and the WebPosition Page Critic will help you tremendously as rules fluctuate over time.
With AltaVista's latest comments in mind, I'd recommend you place further emphasis on creating pages with good content that are aesthetically appealing. I've always recommended good content. After all, this is very important anyway in order to SELL your products or services!
Does good content mean creating pages with thousands of words on it? No. The average page ranking in the top 5 at the first of April for AltaVista was only about 500 words. The WebPosition Page Critic can give you more specifics of what AltaVista likes to see for a top ranked page.
In an ideal world, you'd optimize only your EXISTING pages for AltaVista, as explained in this article. However, this will severely limit you to the number of ways Web surfers can find you. And, it's a catch 22: What AltaVista likes to see will not match what another engine likes to see. In addition - What if accurately describing your product requires 1000 words and AltaVista favors 500? Here are your options:- Give the visitor LESS content to please AltaVista (ironic huh?)
- Include all 1000 words on the page and never be found on AltaVista because you didn't give them the 500 words that they really wanted to see.
- Break your page into a 500 word page which links to another page with more information.
Obviously, option C makes the most sense. However, if you aren't careful under AltaVista's latest rules, you risk being red-flagged. This can be insanely aggravating, but I don't make the rules - I just report them. To minimize this risk, I'd recommend the following:
- When possible, attempt to include the entire content of a topic on the page you've optimized. If that's not practical, divide the page into logical sections. For example, optimize your product benefits page and then have a link to "product features." If you're clever, you'd optimize each page for different keywords to maximize your visibility. An AltaVista representative cannot logically call that spam since the content is NOT duplicated, and there is real information on each page.
- Make your doorway pages (i.e., any page optimized to be favorable to the engine) look like any other page on your site. Include the same graphics, same menu structure, same copyright notice, etc. Don't include an over-abundance of links to the SAME page "for more information." Otherwise you might be accused of creating a page to simply point to another page.
- For any page you optimize that links to another page, be sure you have at least one link back to that page from either your home page, or another page that's close to your home page. This can be done through the use of hallway pages:
http://www.webposition.com/mp-0799.htm#ONE
For some articles on creating good Web site content, see:
Conceptualize your web site:
http://www.builder.com/Graphics/Conceptualize/?tag=st.bl.3881.plbl
Rules for writing effective web copy
http://www.klebanoff.com/writingwpr.html
Make your site easy to navigate
http://www.builder.com/Graphics/UserInterface/?tag=st.cn.sr1.dir
Internet Marketing Center's very comprehensive Marketing/Design book:
http://www.marketingtips.com
- Avoid "bad" Hallway pages - The search engines have long favored Hallway pages. They let the search engines spider your site and then find links to all your other important pages. This often leads to higher rankings, versus submitting the pages directly. However, now AltaVista's reps are saying they don't like "..pages that contain only links to other pages" which is rather silly if you ask me.
For example, hallways are particularly necessary if you have pages you want indexed that are more than 2 links away from your home page. Most search engine spiders will not travel very deep into a site to find those pages. In addition, I still have consultants that recommend the use of hallway pages because, generally, pages rank higher, and stay indexed longer, when they are linked from the home page or one page down from the home page.
In addition, according to our customer survey, there was reasonable evidence to indicate that if you avoid submitting your doorway pages directly, you decrease your odds of being blocked or banned. Most likely pages that are submitted directly are placed under greater scrutiny by the spider than those it finds on its own by following links from your home page.
Still, you should exercise some caution when using hallway pages. I'd put a few paragraphs of text on the page so an automated spider sees other content beyond just links, and a human-being will be more apt to see a purpose to the page beyond something to help the search spider find pages. You might also limit the number of links on any given page. However, our survey did not indicate one number of links worked better than another.
Although hallway pages could get you "red-flagged," I can't see AltaVista automatically banning sites that simply have pages with lists of links. After all, Yahoo.com, one of the most popular sites on the Web, is little more than a big collection of links! Many other directory sites are the same way.
I will recommend that you not submit your hallway pages directly to AltaVista. As mentioned, there's some evidence that any page submitted directly is given more scrutiny over pages that AltaVista finds on its own.
For more details on hallway pages see:
http://www.webposition.com/mp-0799.htm#ONE - Keep a low profile - Some webmasters have found that if one of their Web sites gets banned, their other sites follow suite soon after. Therefore, many people believe AltaVista is not only red-flagging Web sites, but also the Webmasters themselves. Is there any truth to this? Perhaps. However, it may be that the same risk-factors exist on their other sites as did on the first site. If you want to error on the side of caution though, here are the ways AltaVista or any site might track your activities:
- If your ISP assigns you a static IP number when you connect or dial up to the Internet, any Web site can record that IP address and block you, based on that number. I believe there may be firewall products that can hide your originating IP address, or Web site services (www.anonymizer.com) that will make you more anonymous on the Web. If you share an IP with other users, you could be blocked because of someone else's wrongdoing. In theory, AltaVista would not do this since thousands of users can sometimes all share the same IP.
- If submitting in your browser, you could be passed a cookie that uses a unique identifier so that your submissions to other sites could be tracked. However, when I recently submitted to AltaVista in my browser, I set the browser option to prompt me before accepting cookies. No cookies were sent. Therefore, I currently question the reports that AltaVista may be using cookies to identify webmasters. In addition, WebPosition's Submitter has never accepted cookies, so this is NOT an issue if you're using our program to do your submissions. We also employ cloaking logic to make submissions from WebPosition look just like they were coming from a regular browser. That way the submissions cannot be discriminated against.
- If an engine decided you were a spammer, they could potentially identify other Web sites you own via the WHOIS service on networksolutions.com. If you register your domain via Network Solutions, it will ask you for your existing account number (called a NIC Handle) if you have one from a past registration. I'd recommend you type in your information rather than referencing your handle. That way, it cannot be used as a way to identify all your Web sites.
You might also vary the spelling of your company name, street, etc. just ever so slightly. You could put an extra space, a comma or period, etc. so that an automated system could not easily match both sites as belonging to the same person. NOTE: I am NOT advocating that you falsify information on the domain registration form. Doing so could get you into legal trouble or you could lose the license to your domain.
The Real Story on Shared IPs:
Some Webmasters believe that the "too many URLs submitted" error results from too many people submitting their domains on a server that shares the same IP address amongst many sites. I've had a number of reports from people who have shared IP address Web sites that have not had any problems. In addition, our survey showed no statistical difference between having a shared IP and not having a shared IP in regards to being banned. If it is a risk factor, I've not found any evidence to support it yet. On the other hand, being on a hosting service that offers free Web sites is a major risk factor.
← What is this?
