How to Know that Your Domain is Banned in a Search Engine

Do you have a domain that appears to have ranking problems in Google, Yahoo or MSN? Sometimes this may leave you wondering, “Has my Web site somehow been banned in the search engines?”; “Did my search engine optimization firm do something bad?”.

If your Web site is brand new, you can skip this and just read some earlier columns on optimizing a new Web site.

If your Web site once ranked and all of a sudden seems to be taking a hit, perhaps you should check to see if you’ve suffered a ban in any one of the search engines or encountered a penalty.

First, let’s take a look at what a ban might look like.

Oftentimes it is difficult to tell whether a domain name is banned in the search engine or simply penalized by the search engine. Or, perhaps the domain name is neither banned, nor penalized. It could be, you just managed to screw up your site. Let’s look at all of the possibilities and explore how to tell whether or not a domain name is banned.

Let’s first look at Google. Go to www.google.com and type in the domain name, with and without the “www.” For example, search for “www.domain.com” and then search for “domain.com” (without using quotes around the domain name). If the domain shows up in the search results then it is not banned in Google.

If the domain name does not show up in the search results but there are search results then there may be an issue with that domain name. For example, if the domain name does not appear, but the domain name is highlighted or shows up in bold on other sites in the search results, there most likely is a problem with that domain name.

To investigate a domain further at Google, let’s look at what Google returns when we perform a site: search at Google. For example, if you go to Google and search for “site:www.domain.com” and then “site:domain.com” and Google comes back with “Your search - site:www.domain.com - did not match any documents,” the site most likely is banned at Google.

If you add the domain name to Google Webmaster Tools, you should be able to learn more about the domain name, even if you do not own that domain name. In fact, you can add just about any domain name (as long as it resolves to a page, or is up and running). I recently added a domain name that I know is banned in the index and received the message from Google, “No pages from your site are currently included in Google’s index. Indexing can take time. You may find it helpful to review our information for webmasters and webmaster guidelines.”

If you own the domain name and have the ability to perform Google’s verification procedure then you may find out additional information about the domain. I recently verified a domain name that I know is currently banned in the Google index, and learned that if a site is truly banned in Google, their Webmaster Tools section will not show you any data. For example, when you look at the Diagnostics/Web Crawl area there will be no data shown; in the Links/Pages with external links section, there will be no data listed.

What should you do if the domain name appears to be banned? If the domain is banned in Google, make sure you take a look at the Google Webmaster Guidelines and see if the domain/Web site violates any of those guidelines. If you are certain that the domain name does not violate any of the guidelines, or if it once did but no longer does, then you should consider putting in a reinclusion request. Google explains that you need to sign into your Google Webmaster Tools account and go to the Removed Content tab, and then click “Reinclude” next to the content you’re trying to get back in the Google index.

There are several reasons why domain names can be banned in Google. Some bans appear to be different than others. For example, if a domain name is not renewed, I have seen it appear to be removed from the Google index, especially when a domain name reaches the “pending delete” status.

Also, newly registered domain names tend to be immediately indexed, but then will tend to drop out of the index. In these cases, the domains aren’t necessarily banned from the index; they’re simply removed. Adding content to the domain and getting links to that domain from other web sites will help get the domain back in the Google index. Otherwise, some really tricked up SEO, or just bad luck, can certainly get you banned.

A couple of great forum discussions on this topic are currently happening here:
Google Penalty?
Why is this Web site banned in Google?

Let’s take a look at Yahoo and Microsoft Live Search and determine whether or not a domain name is banned in their indexes. Searching for the domain name in either Yahoo’s or Live Search’s search field (e.g., www.domain.com) will show pages from that domain name. If the domain is not found in the search results, then going to Yahoo’s Site Explorer or Microsoft’s Webmaster Center will also help determine if the domain is in the index or not.

If the domain name is not in either Yahoo or Microsoft’s index, then it will most likely show a message like, “We were unable to find any results for the given URL in our index: www.domain.com”. If the domain name shows that pages are indexed, then most likely it is not banned.

Here’s a forum discussion on a Yahoo ban: Banned by Yahoo?

In most cases, loss of rankings could just be a stupid mistake that someone made (302 redirecting a bunch of pages from your site to a different domain; redesign/relaunching a Web site and not properly 301 redirecting the URLs; redesigning/relaunching a Web site and going from 1,000 pages indexed to 40). These are just a few examples of how you could “ban yourself” (”penalize” would be a more appropriate term). It is far more common that you hurt yourself than it is that the search engines ban you.

As always, if you’re not sure, contact a search engine optimization professional for assistance/counseling.

Source: http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=3629040

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Become a Pay Per Click Expert in 5 Quick and Easy Steps!

Ever heard of the 90/10 pay per cliíck rule? Basically it says that 90% of PPC success is enjoyed by only the top 10% of advertisers who know the inside methods to getting the most from their PPC campaign. And oddly enough, it’s basically true. Especially when it comes to Google’s AdWords, which offers the most advanced methods to help advertisers get their money’s worth (and then some!)Some people use PPC as their primary source of search engine marketing while others use it as a way to get steady supplemental targeted traffíc. As an SEO professional I’ve developed PPC campaigns for my clients so they get targeted traffíc while the organic optimization is ramping up, which often takes weeks or months. Whatever the reason, PPC is a good way for any online business owner to get targeted traffíc and a great way for those who know how to use the system to their advantage. And that’s exactly what this article will do for you.
But before we dive in, just why is AdWords so valuable? There are plenty of reasons but for starters…

1.) AdWords listings are seen by more than 80% of all Internet users on millions of sites ranging from Google and AOL to very specific niche locations it would otherwise take forever to research and manage independent advertising accounts with.

2.) Your ads can be targeted specifically by region or language.

3.) Ads that you can constantly update and test are a great way to test what keywords are really best for targeting in your organic SEO efforts, which can be very time consuming and expensive.

Step 1: Get an AdWords Account

If you don’t already have an AdWords account, it’s easy enough to sign up for at http://adwords.google.com. Once you have your account you can begin creating ads and finding the best keywords. Actually, you can use Google’s free AdWords keyword research tool even without an account by visiting:

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal.

Step 2: Develop a Killer Ad

Here are the things to know about ad development broken out by Title and Body…

Ad Title:

1.) Use targeted keywords NOT your company name

2.) Mention a benefit, rather than a feature.

3.) Take advantage of the “Dynamic Titles” feature by entering the following code in your title “{KeyWord: Your Keyword}” (without quotes.) This allows you to use the same ad body text with a dynamically generated title that matches exactly what the searcher is looking for and makes your ad the most relevant it can be. By the way, this is case sensitive; “{KeyWord: Your Keyword}” will make the first letter of each word capitalized while “{keykord: your keyword}” will make it all lower case.

The body or text of your ad need only do two things; hook ‘em and then reel ‘em in. The hook is something that peaks their interest such as “íncrease your profíts with XYZ software.” While reeling them in involves what traditional marketers refer to as a “call to action.” This might be “Download your Free 30 day Tríal now.”

Note: Do not over capitalize your ad. At best just capitalize the words you feel are most important to the viewer. It’s OK to capitalize the first letter of each word in the title but not the body.

Step 3: Maximize URL Usage

While we’re on the subject of what the searcher sees in your ad, we need to consider the URL. Google will let you make the visible URL different than the actual URL leading to the landing page where the visitor will end up after clicking your ad. This is huge! Take advantage of it.

This feature will let you test multiple landing pages in your ads to see what pages are converting sales best while showing the visitor the “display” URL for your product. Let’s say the landing page being tested in this particular ad is “…com/XYZ/purchase3.htm.” When that ad gets clicked you will soon see if “/purchase3.htm” is converting better than “/purchase1.htm.” But here’s the magic… By using a display URL of “…com/XYZ/” , and actually having the product there as well, you are building your brand and providing a visual queue for users to manually type in the URL if for some reason your landing page is unavailable.

Step 4: Use Special Keyword Advantages

Obviously keywords are a very big factor in the success of your campaign. Choosing the best keywords is extremely important and using Google’s “Keyword Matching Options” can help take your great keywords one step further. Just clíck the “Advanced option: match types” link when setting up your ads and choose from the following…

1.) Broad Match: Is the default and will show your ad each time all of the keywords in your keyword phrase are entered.

2.) Phrase Match: Looks for the order of words in your keyword phrase and only shows your ad if the order matches. Your ad will still show if your phrase is any part of the search query, but only if the word order is the same.

3.) Exact Match: This is the most stringent and will only present your ad if your exact keyword phrase, and ONLY your exact keyword phrase, is used.

4.) Negative Match: This is a nice feature that will stop your ad from showing if a word appears in the search query that you don’t want to get clicks for. The most common example is “free” which would eliminate you paying for clicks from people who just want a free version of what you offer.

Step 5: Find and Use the Best Keywords

Now for the most important aspect of your PPC campaign; keyword selection. The more targeted keywords you can find, the better. Google offers a great free keyword tool as we discussed early on. Here are the qualities to look for in your keywords:

1.) A good “Average Search Volume” rating (check out the blue bars)

2.) A high search volume for the previous month (especially true for seasonal topics)

3.) The lowest possible “Advertiser Competition” rating

4.) Look for common misspellings and use the “exact match” feature to get plenty of low cost targeted traffíc.

5.) Scroll down the page and find hidden gems that others miss. There are a lot for those who look carefully enough.

Insider Tip: You can also collect hundreds of low volume keywords, put them in a spreadsheet for easy upload and use the “Dynamic Title” feature we discussed earlier to generate hundreds of low cost highly targetëd leads.

Professional Tip: SEO professionals typically use specialized keyword selection and SpySoftware because it does weeks worth of work in a matter of hours. Keyword Elite for example, can generate thousands of valuable keywords in minutes and does “ethical spying” that exposes the competition and makes placement takeover easy.

That’s all you need to know to join the top 10% of PPC advertisers getting the most out of their campaigns with minimal effort. Best of luck!

Source: SiteProNews

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My Web Site is Built - So Where’s the Traffic and Business?

Your website is built and sitting pretty. So where are all the people you hoped would come over to play? You need traffic for your site to be effective and to start generating leads. Now that you know that just having a website won’t necessarily drive business to you, you should consider the most important thing most people miss in this effort.

Here are the 3 factors that need to be in place for a successful website and successful business. I’ll líst them from least important to most important:

1. Sound ‘on-site’ Search Engine Optimization strategies. This refers to the things many consider the most important. There are the basic A-B-C’s of getting things set up with keywords and phrases so that you will rank well against your competition in Google, Yahoo and the like. This involves a lot of elements that you, as the end user, may not realize or see. Having the proper titles for each page, putting in the right key words and header tags. There are solid things that should be done and most web designers that I talk to rarely take it beyond this point. Being ranked well by search engines starts here but the best realize this is only the start.

2. Content That Is Effective. Visitors are useless unless they buy something or make contact with you. We call this “Conversion Ratio”. What percentage of your website visitors convert into buyers and users of your services? This can and should be measured. The important things here are the attractiveness and professional appearance of the site with content that is compelling. Having the right mix of words, graphics and informational content can take conversion rates from being non-existent to well over 10%.

Web designers get so many calls from business owners that can only think to ask, “how much do you charge to make me a website?” What they miss is what it will cost them in business profíts if it is not done right. Web designers may know how to make a good looking site but not necessarily how to input the words and content for the best results. Writing compelling content is a very specialized talent. This takes more work and more time to do. It costs more, but the difference can be huge on your return on investment.

When you have this part right, the most important part of driving traffic can be taken advantage of. This aspect is where many web developers simply drop off the map in helping clients. If you are shopping price only, you won’t find this part of the mix. What is it that they miss?

3. Off Site Factors Are Most The Important Factors in Driving Traffic! What are ‘off site factors’? The most important key for ranking well with Google are the links that come to you from other sites that Google considers to be important sites. MSN and Yahoo are important sites. So are Digg.com, Wikipedia.com and WowWebWorks.com. OK, so the last one is more important to me than Google.

Here is the rub. How can you control whether or not other sites talk about you and link to you? I don’t mean calling other site owners and saying something like, “Hey, I’ll link to you if you link to me” stuff. Mutual links are not important anymore. One way links are. So how can you get those rolling? Well, this takes work. The nice part is that it is work that will have a direct effect on your bottom line. You have enough “busy work” as a business owner. This isn’t busy work; it’s vital.

Social-Business Networking Sites - Use Them

This is where sites like LinkedIn.com, Facebook.com and even MySpace.com come into play. I recommend using LinkedIn.com for business development. From there you can refer to your website and create interest in your site in others. I have a full article of ideas for this elsewhere so I won’t elaborate here. For more on this see “Why Bother with ‘LinkedIn’ or ‘Facebook’?” . Posting your information and inviting contacts to link in with you can be huge. It’s like having a second or third website with positive recommendations about you and your business.

Effective PR Campaigns

This can be the most important foundation for your business success. As our business partners Ray Lohner and Jerry Ogg from E3 Public Relations have drilled into me, most businesses have it all backwards. Here is what they preach for priorities:

1. Advertising => 2. Marketing => 3. Public Relation (If at all)

Wrong!

1. Public Relations => 2. Marketing => Advertising (If still needed)

Right!

Many businesses we build websites for already do some advertising with varying degrees of success. They do advertising yet often don’t know how that differs from marketing and ignore PR altogether.

It is PR that really sets the table for all the rest to work. The Internet is transforming even PR. Every time you have a bit of company news from hiring a new employee to lending support to a local charity it deserves a PR piece. Open a new office? PR. Have a unique solution to a problem? Let the press know - they may just do a story on it.

The idea is that if you get enough good PR working for you it opens doors for marketing and advertising because your company and name are more recognizable and respected. Just knowing who you are can be huge.

What has changed in the PR realm in recent years is the rise of online PR companies that will take your electronic releases and send them as feeds to news services nationwide. An example is www.prweb.com. It is chock full of information about good PR and advice on how to write it for best effect. Your submissions are sent out and picked up as a feed by other services. If your PR piece has a reference to your website, you now have 1 if not dozens of incoming links to your website. Do dozens of releases and you have dozens of one-way links and start to get noticed by other people interested in your field. Google notices this also.

Why Is PR All But Ignored?

So why don’t more businesses use this? Why do business owners nod in agreement but rarely follow through doing this? Because it takes time and effort to put together a good PR piece in a form that will be picked up by other sites or publications. It takes some knowledge to know where to even send it after you write it. Frankly, you probably don’t have time to sit down and pen out a 700-word piece. Few have the writing talent to do it right. It’s a skill, a specialized skill. Even if you do have the ability, you may well not know where to send it or who at a publication might be interested in it. This is exactly why PR firms exist. They do it well, know where to send it for greatest effect and they know what is newsworthy to send. They usually know people at the publications on a first name basis and what they are looking for.

I’m betting that if you cut your advertising budget in half and put that half into paying for a PR firm to take over that job that your remaining advertising will be even more effective than before.

This is one of the added values for quality web development companies. Next time you call a web design firm and ask, “How much does it cost to build us a website?” find out if “fries” come with that. Do you get just a website or do you get the added value of expertise in Public Relations, Marketing and Advertising. Trust this, you will get no more than you pay for.

If your web developer doesn’t do this, find a good PR firm and make sure they work together to do the job right.

Find out if they know enough about LinkedIn to even be there. If not, maybe they can’t help you there. How about their press releases? Do they even do them for themselves? How do they pro-actively do marketing for themselves? There are probably reasons why the cheapest bidder is the cheapest bidder. I hired the cheapest bidder to pave my driveway. Huge mistake now that it’s cracking after only 3 years.

A larger vision can make you a lot more money. You have to decide if “who’s the lowest bidder” is more important than how much money and exposure the site adds to your bottom line. After all, isn’t making money the point?

About The Author
John Clark is the President of Wow Web Works in Kalamazoo, MI. This and other articles of interest are posted on his blog at wowwebworks.com/community.

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Tools

Keyword research tool

Keyword research and, ultimately, keyword selection are extremely important parts of the overall SEO process. Selecting keywords relevant to your field of activity is essential. Make sure you conduct a proper in-depth keyword research before you begin placing keywords on your web site.

If you want your web site to be high ranked in search engines, then use these tools to find out the words that searchers use to get to a website like yours, and place them in the appropriate places. Nevertheless, remember that no tool is perfect. Don’t be afraid to use your intelligence and common sense.

1.	Keyword Research Tool - Webmaster toolkit
2.	Keyword External Tool - Google Adwords
3.	Keyword Selector Tool - Inventory Overture
4.	Keyword Suggestions Overture - SEO Chat
5.	Website Keyword Suggestions - Webconfs
6.	Keyword Suggestion Tool - Self SEO

Keyword density

These tools helps you achieve the ideal keyword density (how many times a keyword is used on a page divided by the number of words on that page) for a set of key terms. Why is it important? Because search engines use this meter in their process of qualification determining relevant websites. Read more about this topic on seochat.com .

7.	Keyword Density - SEO Chat
8.	Keyword Density & Proeminence - Ranks
9.	Keyword Density Analyzer - Keyword density
10.	Analyze Keywords Density - Google rankings
11.	Keyword Density Checker - Webconfs
12.	Keyword Density Analyzer Tools - SEO Book

Competition Analysis

Analyzing your competition is an important step in the search engine optimization process and it takes into consideration: what keywords your competition has chosen and how they use them on their website.

If you want to see who is your competition for the targeted keywords you’ve chosen then check these tools:

13.	Competition Tool - SEO Digger
14.	Competition Analysis Tool - Seoscorecard
15.	Top Competitor Tool - Webuildpages

Search engine keyword position tool

When done correctly, search engine positioning can increase web traffic by a tremendous amount. Use these tools to check your current position of your keywords in major search engines like: Google, Yahoo, MSN:

16.	Search Engine Keyword Position - SEO Chat
17.	Keyword Analysis Tool - Mcdar
18.	SERPS Position Checker - LinkVendor
19.	Website Position Tool - Rnk1

Link Popularity

Link popularity counts the total number of web pages which link to a website and it is considered to be a major factor used by search engines in determining a site’s position in search results. A site with more inbound links will be positioned higher than a similar site with fewer links.

It is helpful to keep track of your backlinks, to know which sites are linking back to you, and how the anchor text (a keyword incorporated into the text of the hyperlink) of the backlink incorporates keywords relating to your site.

These tools will query the major search engines like: Google, Yahoo, MSN and will return the total link count for each URL:

20.	Link Popularity - SEO Chat
21.	Link Popularity Checker - Webmaster Toolkit
22.	Link Popularity Check - Widexl Internet Solution
23.	Link Popularity Check - Market Leap
24.	Link Popularity - Backlinks Checker - Search Bliss
25.	Backlink Analyzer - Sitening
26.	Check Backlinks - Webuildpages

If you’ve realized that your website link popularity needs to be increased, then you can start by reading some articles about were can you submit you web site content in order to receive quality backlinks. We recommend:

• 50 Press Release Submission Websites
• 50 Free Article Submission Websites
• Free RSS Submission Directories List
• Top 50 Free Directories
• Social Media Web Sites: digg , del.icio.us , reddit , stumbleupon , spurl

Class C Checker

When developing a network of linked web sites, you should bear in mind that search engines incorporate historical and IP address data. So in order not to be penalized for receiving links from the same Class C IP (the number of bits used to identify the network and the host vary according to the network class of the address) you should check where your linking partners are hosted and test what their IP Address is. This could make a difference for SEO purposes if you are going to get new links from different web sites.

27.	Class C Checker - Webrank Info
28.	Class C Checker - Webmaster Toolkit
29.	Class C Checker - SEO Chat

Spider Simulator

What you see as a visitor in your browser while watching at any web site differs a lot from what the search engines spiders see when indexing your pages.

Find out what spiders see when they crawler your websites by using these simulators:

30.	Spider Simulator - SEO Chat
31.	Spider View - Iwebtool
32.	Search Engine Spider Simulator - Anownsite
33.	SE Bot Simulator - XML Sitemaps
34.	SE Spider - LinkVendor

Browser Screen Resolution Checker

It is important to test a web site in as many ways as possible: view it in different screen resolutions, various computer platforms and different browsers. Find out how your web page looks like with the viewer’s monitor set to different screen resolutions as you want to be sure your visitor can see everything or at least the important navigation links:

35.	Browser Screen Resolution Checker - Markhorrell
36.	Screen Size Tester - AnyBrowser
37.	Screen Resolution Checker - AndyLangTon

HTML and CSS validations

Although it’s not yet proved without doubt that W3C validation gives you better search engine rankings, it’s sure that errors in your code can cause you big problems. Converting your website pages to XHTML will help you reach more customers, as your site will work better in more browsers and non-traditional devices. Read more about this topic in our article: Does your website need W3CF Validation

In order to see if you’re CSS files or HTML code turns out to be valid use these tools:

• HTML
  

  38.	W3C Validator
  39.	WDG HTML Validator - Web Design Group
  40.	CSE HTML Validator Lite
  41.	Validation Services for your HTML / XHTML / WML - Validome

• CSS
  

  42.	CSS Validator - Jigsaw

FireFox Extensions

43.	Developer ToolBar

A toolbar designed for Firefox, Flock, Mozilla and Seamonkey, with various web developer tools.

44.

SEOpen

SEOpen is an extension for Firefox to help with search engine optimization. It provides many helpful tools at the click of a mouse: Yahoo Backlinks, Pages in Yahoo Index, Google Backlinks, Google Cache, and Pages in Google index, Google Related, PageRank Check, MSN Backlinks, Pages in MSN Index, Alexa Overview, Alexa Traffic, Alexa Related.

45.	SEO Links Extension

When enabled, SEO Links extension, hovering any link in FireFox (compatible width FireFox 1.0-1.5 ) will show you Yahoo, MSN, and Google link popularity and ranking data for the URL and anchor text pair.

Speed Tester

It’s important to consider how fast your pages load because users will shy away from sites they can’t navigate quickly and easily. Additionally, smaller pages are indexed by Google and other search engines easier:

46.	Speed Tester - LinkVendor
47.	Website Speed Test - Web Hosting Top
48.	Website Speed Test - Iwebtool
49.	Speed test - WebSite Goodies
50.	Web Page Speed Report

Page Rank Prediction

PageRank is an algorithm used by Google to measure the relevance and importance of a web page. In order to find a way to make the difference between the million of pages on the web, Google rates each of them, gives them a “vote”. Find out more about: Google Page Rank Algorithm .

By using these tools you will get an estimation of your future page rank:

51.	Future PageRank - SEO Chat
52.	Predict PageRank - Page Rank Prediction
53.	Future PageRank
54.	* Page Rank Prediction - DNLodge

* minim 100 backlink in order to estimate future Page Rank

Check your current Page Rank:

55.	Visual PageRank - Iwebtool
56.	Search PageRank - SEO Chat
57.	Page Rank Tool

Traffic Rankings

58.	Alexa Traffic
59.	Awstats
60.	** Sitetracker
61.	** Histats
62.	** Google Analytics
63.	Compete

** you need to create an account

Search Engine Saturation

Search Engine Saturation refers to the number of pages a given search engine has in its index for your website domain. It is important because this kind of information tells you if the engines are finding and indexing all the pages and files on your website.

Use the tools we recommend to verify your search engine saturation levels and compare your website to competitors on a regular basis in order to see if it is climbing or falling.

64.	Search Engine Saturation - Market Leap
65.	Search Engine Saturation Tool - Build Reciprocal Links
66.	Search Engine Saturation - SearchBliss
67.	Search Engine Saturation Tool - To the Web
68.	Search Engine Saturation Tool - SEO Book

It doesn’t matter what tool you choose for your research as long as you know that they are only informative and nobody can guarantee your results. Nevertheless, such tools are useful to provide you with a broad picture of the markets you decide to compete in.

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