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"Google's Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide Version 1.1, published 13 November 2008 Welcome to Google's Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide. This document first began as an effort to help teams within Google, but we thought it'd be just as useful to webmasters that are new to the topic of search engine optimization and wish to improve their sites' interaction with both users and search engines. Although this guide won't tell you any secrets that'll automatically rank your site first for queries in Google (sorry!), following the best practices outlined below will make it easier for search engines to both crawl and index your content. Search engine optimization is often about making small modifications to parts of your website. When viewed individually, these changes might seem like incremental improvements, but when combined with other optimizations, they could have a noticeable impact on your site's user experience and performance in organic search results. You're likely already familiar with many of the topics in this guide, because they're essential ingredients for any webpage, but you may not be making the most out of them. Search engine optimization affects only organic search results, not paid or "sponsored" results, such as Google AdWords Google's Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide, Version 1.1, published 13 November 2008 Even though this guide's title contains the words "search engine", we'd like to say that you should base your optimization decisions first and foremost on what's best for the visitors of your site. They're the main consumers of your content and are using search engines to find your work. Focusing too hard on specific tweaks to gain ranking in the organic results of search engines may not deliver the desired results. Search engine optimization is about putting your site's best foot forward when it comes to visibility in search engines. An example may help our explanations, so we've created a fictitious website to follow throughout the guide. For each topic, we've fleshed out enough information about the site to illustrate the point being covered. Here's some background information about the site we'll use: • • • • Website/business name: "Brandon's Baseball Cards" Domain name: brandonsbaseballcards.com Focus: Online-only baseball card sales, price guides, articles, and news content Size: Small, ~250 pages Your site may be smaller or larger than this and offer vastly different content, but the optimization topics we discussed below should apply to sites of all sizes and types. We hope our guide gives you some fresh ideas on how to improve your website, and we'd love to hear your questions, feedback, and success stories in the Google Webmaster Help Group. Create unique, accurate page titles A title tag tells both users and search engines what the topic of a particular page is. The <title> tag should be placed within the <head> tag of the HTML document. Ideally, you should create a unique title for each page on your site. The title of the homepage for our baseball card site, which lists the business name and three main focus areas Google's Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide, Version 1.1, published 13 November 2008 If your document appears in a search results page, the contents of the title tag will usually appear in the first line of the results (If you're unfamiliar with the different parts of a Google search result, you might want to check out the anatomy of a search result video by Google engineer Matt Cutts, and this helpful diagram of a Google search results page.) Words in the title are bolded if they appear in the user's search query. This can help users recognize if the page is likely to be relevant to their search. The title for your homepage can list the name of your website/business and could include other bits of important information like the physical location of the business or maybe a few of its main focuses or offerings. A user performs the query [baseball cards] Our homepage shows up as a result, with the title listed on the first line (notice that the query terms the user searched for appear in bold) If the user clicks the result and visits the page, the page's title will appear at the top of the browser Titles for deeper pages on your site should accurately describe the focus of that particular page and also might include your site or business name. A user performs the query [rarest baseball cards] Google's Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide, Version 1.1, published 13 November 2008 A relevant, deeper page (its title is unique to the content of the page) on our site appears as a result Good practices for page title tags • Accurately describe the page's content - Choose a title that effectively communicates the topic of the page's content. Avoid: • choosing a title that has no relation to the content on the page • using default or vague titles like "Untitled" or "New Page 1" • Create unique title tags for each page - Each of your pages should ideally have a unique title tag, which helps Google know how the page is distinct from the others on your site. Avoid: • using a single title tag across all of your site's pages or a large group of pages • Use brief, but descriptive titles - Titles can be both short and informative. If the title is too long, Google will show only a portion of it in the search result. Avoid: • using extremely lengthy titles that are unhelpful to users • stuffing unneeded keywords in your title tags Make use of the "description" meta tag A page's description meta tag gives Google and other search engines a summary of what the page is about. Whereas a page's title may be a few words or a phrase, a page's description meta tag might be a sentence or two or a short paragraph. Google Webmaster Tools provides a handy content analysis section that'll tell you about any description meta tags that are either too short, long, or duplicated too many times (the same information is also shown for <title> tags). Like the <title> tag, the description meta tag is placed within the <head> tag of your HTML document. Google's Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide, Version 1.1, published 13 November 2008 The beginning of the description meta tag for our homepage, which gives a brief overview of the site's offerings Description meta tags are important because Google might use them as snippets for your pages. Note that we say "might" because Google may choose to use a relevant section of your page's visible text if it does a good job of matching up with a user's query. Alternatively, Google might use your site's description in the Open Directory Project if your site is listed there (learn how to prevent search engines from displaying ODP data). Adding description meta tags to each of your pages is always a good practice in case Google cannot find a good selection of text to use in the snippet. The Webmaster Central Blog has an informative post on improving snippets with better description meta tags. Snippets appear under a page's title and above a page's URL in a search result. A user performs the query [baseball cards] Our homepage appears as a result, with part of its description meta tag used as the snippet Words in the snippet are bolded when they appear in the user's query. This gives the user clues about whether the content on the page matches with what he or she is looking for. Below is another example, this time showing a snippet from a description meta tag on a deeper page (which ideally has its own unique description meta tag) containing an article. Google's Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide, Version 1.1, published 13 November 2008 A user performs the query [rarest baseball cards] One of our deeper pages, with its unique description meta tag used as the snippet, appears as a result Good practices for description meta tags • Accurately summarize the page's content - Write a description that would both inform and interest users if they saw your description meta tag as a snippet in a search result. Avoid: • writing a description meta tag that has no relation to the content on the page • using generic descriptions like "This is a webpage" or "Page about baseball cards" • filling the description with only keywords • copy and pasting the entire content of the document into the description meta tag • Use unique descriptions for each page - Having a different description meta tag for each page helps both users and Google, especially in searches where users may bring up multiple pages on your domain (e.g. searches using the site: operator). If your site has thousands or even millions of pages, hand-crafting description meta tags probably isn't feasible. In this case, you could automatically generate description meta tags based on each page's content. Avoid: • using a single description meta tag across all of your site's pages or a large group of pages Improve the structure of your URLs Creating descriptive categories and filenames for the documents on your website can not only help you keep your site better organized, but it could also lead to better crawling of your documents by Google's Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide, Version 1.1, published 13 November 2008 search engines. Also, it can create easier, "friendlier" URLs for those that want to link to your content. Visitors may be intimidated by extremely long and cryptic URLs that contain few recognizable words. A URL to a page on our baseball card site that a user might have a hard time with URLs like these can be confusing and unfriendly. Users would have a hard time reciting the URL from memory or creating a link to it. Also, users may believe that a portion of the URL is unnecessary, especially if the URL shows many unrecognizable parameters. They might leave off a part, breaking the link. Some users might link to your page using the URL of that page as the anchor text. If your URL contains relevant words, this provides users and search engines with more information about the page than an ID or oddly named parameter would. The highlighted words above could inform a user or search engine what the target page is about before following the link Lastly, remember that the URL to a document is displayed as part of a search result in Google, below the document's title and snippet. Like the title and snippet, words in the URL on the search result appear in bold if they appear in the user's query. A user performs the query [baseball cards] Our homepage appears as a result, with the URL listed under the title and snippet Google's Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide, Version 1.1, published 13 November 2008 Below is another example showing a URL on our domain for a page containing an article about the rarest baseball cards. The words in the URL might appeal to a search user more than an ID number like "www.brandonsbaseballcards.com/article/102125/" would. A user performs the query [rarest baseball cards] A deeper page, with a URL that reflects the type of content found on it, appears as a result Google is good at crawling all types of URL structures, even if they're quite complex, but spending the time to make your URLs as simple as possible for both users and search engines can help. Some webmasters try to achieve this by rewriting their dynamic URLs to static ones; while Google is fine with this, we'd like to note that this is an advanced procedure and if done incorrectly, could cause crawling issues with your site. To learn even more about good URL structure, we recommend this Webmaster Help Center page on creating Google-friendly URLs. Good practices for URL structure • Use words in URLs - URLs with words that are relevant to your site's content and structure are friendlier for visitors navigating your site. Visitors remember them better and might be more willing to link to them. Avoid: • using lengthy URLs with unnecessary parameters and session IDs • choosing generic page names like "page1.html" • using excessive keywords like "baseball-cards-baseball-cards-baseballcards.htm" • Create a simple directory structure - Use a directory structure that organizes your content well and is easy for visitors to know where they're at on your site. Try using your directory structure to indicate the type of content found at that URL. Avoid: • having deep nesting of subdirectories like ".../dir1/dir2/dir3/dir4/dir5/dir6/ page.html" • using directory names that have no relation to the content in them Google's Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide, Version 1.1, published 13 November 2008 • Provide one version of a URL to reach a document - To prevent users from linking to one version of a URL and others linking to a different version (this could split the reputation of that content between the URLs), focus on using and referring to one URL in the structure and internal linking of your pages. If you do find that people are accessing the same content through multiple URLs, setting up a 301 redirect from non-preferred URLs to the dominant URL is a good solution for this. Avoid: • having pages from subdomains and the root directory (e.g. "domain.com/ page.htm" and "sub.domain.com/page.htm") access the same content • mixing www. and non-www. versions of URLs in your internal linking structure • using odd capitalization of URLs (many users expect lower-case URLs and remember them better) Make your site easier to navigate The navigation of a website is important in helping visitors quickly find the content they want. It can also help search engines understand what content the webmaster thinks is important. Although Google's search results are provided at a page level, Google also likes to have a sense of what role a page plays in the bigger picture of the site. All sites have a home or "root" page, which is usually the most frequented page on the site and the starting place of navigation for many visitors. Unless your site has only a handful of pages, you should think about how visitors will go from a general page (your root page) to a page containing more specific content. Do you have enough pages around a specific topic area that it would make sense to create a page describing these related pages (e.g. root page -> related topic listing -> specific topic)? Do you have hundreds of different products that need to be classified under multiple category and subcategory pages? The directory structure for our small website on baseball cards Google's Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide, Version 1.1, published 13 November 2008 A sitemap (lower-case) is a simple page on your site that displays the structure of your website, and usually consists of a hierarchical listing of the pages on your site. Visitors may visit this page if they are having problems finding pages on your site. While search engines will also visit this page, getting good crawl coverage of the pages on your site, it's mainly aimed at human visitors. An XML Sitemap (upper-case) file, which you can submit through Google's Webmaster Tools, makes it easier for Google to discover the pages on your site. Using a Sitemap file is also one way (though not guaranteed) to tell Google which version of a URL you'd prefer as the canonical one (e.g. http://brandonsbaseballcards.com/ or http://www.brandonsbaseballcards.com/; more on what's a preferred domain). Google helped create the open source Sitemap Generator script to help you create a Sitemap file for your site. To learn more about Sitemaps, the Webmaster Help Center provides a useful guide to Sitemap files. Good practices for site navigation • Create a naturally flowing hierarchy - Make it as easy as possible for users to go from general content to the more specific content they want on your site. Add navigation pages when it makes sense and effectively work these into your internal link structure. Avoid: • creating complex webs of navigation links, e.g. linking every page on your site to every other page • going overboard with slicing and dicing your content (it takes twenty clicks to get to deep content) • Use mostly text for navigation - Controlling most of the navigation from page to page on your site through text links makes it easier for search engines to crawl and understand your site. Many users also prefer this over other approaches, especially on some devices that might not handle Flash or JavaScript. Avoid: • having a navigation based entirely on drop-down menus, images, or animations (many, but not all, search engines can discover such links on a site, but if a user can reach all pages on a site via normal text links, this will improve the accessibility of your site; more on how Google deals with non-text files) • Use "breadcrumb" navigation - A breadcrumb is a row of internal links at the top or bottom of the page that allows visitors to quickly navigate back to a previous section or the root page. Many breadcrumbs have the most general page (usually the root page) as the first, left-most link and list the more specific sections out to the right. Breadcrumb links appearing on a deeper article page on our site Google's Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide, Version 1.1, published 13 November 2008 • Put an HTML sitemap page on your site, and use an XML Sitemap file - A simple sitemap page with links to all of the pages or the most important pages (if you have hundreds or thousands) on your site can be useful. Creating an XML Sitemap file for your site helps ensure that search engines discover the pages on your site. Avoid: • letting your HTML sitemap page become out of date with broken links • creating an HTML sitemap that simply lists pages without organizing them, for example by subject • Consider what happens when a user removes part of your URL - Some users might navigate your site in odd ways, and you should anticipate this. For example, instead of using the breadcrumb links on the page, a user might drop off a part of the URL in the hopes of finding more general content. He or she might be visiting http://www.brandonsbaseballcards.com/news/2008/upcoming-baseball-card-shows.htm, but then enter http://www.brandonsbaseballcards.com/news/2008/ into the browser's address bar, believing that this will show all news from 2008. Is your site prepared to show content in this situation or will it give the user a 404 ("page not found" error)? What about moving up a directory level to http://www.brandonsbaseballcards.com/news/? • Have a useful 404 page - Users will occasionally come to a page that doesn't exist on your site, either by following a broken link or typing in the wrong URL. Having a custom 404 page that kindly guides users back to a working page on your site can greatly improve a user's experience. Your 404 page should probably have a link back to your root page and could also provide links to popular or related content on your site. Google provides a 404 widget that you can embed in your 404 page to automatically populate it with many useful features. You can also use Google Webmaster Tools to find the sources of URLs causing "not found" errors. Avoid: • allowing your 404 pages to be indexed in search engines (make sure that your webserver is configured to give a 404 HTTP status code when non-existent pages are requested) • providing only a vague message like "Not found", "404", or no 404 page at all • using a design for your 404 pages that isn't consistent with the rest of your site Offer quality content and services Creating compelling and useful content will likely influence your website more than any of the other factors discussed here. Users know good content when they see it and will likely want to direct other users to it. This could be through blog posts, social media services, email, forums, or other means. Organic or word-of-mouth buzz is what helps build your site's reputation with both users and Google, and it rarely comes without quality co..."

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