Are keywords dead?

Back in March, we asked this question.  Most of you thought if they weren't dead, they were probably on life support.  Here's what Google had to say recently -

Google doesn't use the "keywords" meta tag in our web search ranking.

What does this mean? Should we eliminate keywords?  There are those who say save the space, don't include them.  Google acknowledges keywords neither help or hurt you at this point (your not penalized for having them), and there are some other sites that still look at them.  Further, Google hasn't ruled out that it may revisit using them in the future. 

Bottom line it's the content that makes the difference.  If you want to have your site show up in Google, there will be need to be some keyword density in your text.

Top 10 Websites

Alexa.com has released the latest Top 10 Websites by Traffic. Google has taken over the #1 dethroning longtime holder Yahoo! Even more interesting is that Facebook has surpassed Yahoo!, as well. Google has three properties in the Top 10 with Google, YouTube and Blogger - do not underestimate the power of Google! Can't think the folks over at Yahoo! are to happy about the slide.

Also interesting is who no longer on the Top 10 - MySpace so two years ago - bye,bye. AOL? Who? What? Distant memory. Seriously, when was the last time you checked your Myspace account? Actually, MySpace is #11 and AOL is #35. Twitter is #13 - expect Twitter to surpass MySpace in no time.

Microsoft Live is #5 - I'll be talking about some of their cool tools in upcoming posts - I never rule out Microsoft.

What does this all mean? Google is still King and social networking is taking over. Making Google happy should be the goal of your SEO efforts. And if you haven't gotten on the fFcebook bandwagon, what are you waiting for? Facebook allows you to integrate with your own blog and your Twitter account - post once - send it across all your networks - Interactivity is tbuzz behind Web 2.0!

1. Google
   

   google.com

   Enables users to search the Web, Usenet, and images. Features include PageRank, caching and translation of results, and an option to find similar pages. The company's focus is developing search technology.
   

   
   
2. Facebook
   

   facebook.com

   A social utility that connects people, to keep up with friends, upload photos, share links and videos.
   

   
   
3. Yahoo!
   

   yahoo.com

   Personalized content and search options. Chatrooms, free e-mail, clubs, and pager.
   

   
   
4. YouTube
   

   youtube.com

   YouTube is a way to get your videos to the people who matter to you. Upload, tag and share your videos worldwide!
   

   
   
5. Windows Live
   

   live.com

   Search engine from Microsoft.
   

   
   
6. Wikipedia
   

   wikipedia.org

   An online collaborative encyclopedia.
   

   
   
7. Blogger.com
   

   blogger.com

   Free, automated weblog publishing tool that sends updates to a site via FTP.
   

   
   
8. Microsoft Network (MSN)
   

   msn.com

   Dialup access and content provider.
   

   
   
9. Baidu.com
   

   baidu.com

   The leading Chinese language search engine, provides "simple and reliable" search experience, strong in Chinese language and multi-media content including MP3 music and movies, the first to offer WAP and PDA-based mobile search in China.
   

   
   
10. Yahoo!カテゴリ
    

    yahoo.co.jp

    有料審査制のディレクトリ。ウェブサービスの形でAPIを公開。

Microsoft chases Google

Microsoft has launched its answer to Google. So far, MicroSoft has not been able to break into the Google dominated search space, but knowing Microsoft they're not likely to give up easy.

So, should you spend a lot of effort optimizing for Bing? Well, not until demostrate some market share, but it couldn't hurt to submit your site to Bing.

To submit your site to Bing:
To request that Bing crawl your site, submit your site's domain to http://www.bing.com/docs/submit.aspx.

To submit your Sitemap:
To submit an XML-based Sitemap for your site, copy and paste the below URL into the address bar of your browser--be sure to change “www.YourWebAddress.com” to your domain name--and then press ENTER:

http://www.bing.com/webmaster/ping.aspx?sitemap=www.YourWebAddress.com/sitemap.xml

Make Google Happy

There are thousands of search engines out there, but only one commands 68% of the search market –

So, yes you should aim to make Google happy. And Google is willing to help. If you care about your ranking on Google, then start at the beginning – Google’s webmaster tools. Start with diagnostic – what Google sees on your site that should be fixed. Start with Content analysis - See potential problems with site metadata, such as title and meta description information.

There is an old adage about Cobbler’s children having no shoes – so big surprise - we’ve be a little remiss in keeping up with Google’s web tools. So by way of bad example – here are our Content analysis: www.dohertyassoc.com

While we were crawling your site, we noticed some issues with the content of your pages. These issues won't prevent your site from appearing in Google search results, but paying attention to them can provide Google with more information and even help drive traffic to your site. For example, title and meta description text can appear in search results, and useful, descriptive text is more likely to be clicked on by users

We need to clean up the meta descriptions on two pages, and interestingly the duplicate title tags are a result of a blog created by blogger (a Google ap) and using tags in the keyword descriptor.

Start at the beginning and check out what Google sees when it looks at your site.

Get the latest news and updates from Google.
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