I have a question about back links. How do you get relavent back links without getting on link farms? I have been using twitter for a while and just started facebook. I was told to get a tinyurl and add a small fishing report on twitter and it would count as a backlink? I have written 5 articles on ezine but find that time consuming and did not help much.

I can't seem to get a straight answer when it comes to how a site is coded/built and the affects that this has on SEO. After having taken a few web courses (design to SEO related courses) it seems to me that the "best practice" with regard to building a site that is search engine "friendly" is with CSS, utilizing as few tables as possible. I've been told by numerous instructors that tables can adversely affect SEO rankings and they don't recommend constructing with tables (they consider this an outdated approach).

However, I work with a couple of web developers that swear this isn't true and refuse to move away from building sites with tables. Can you solve this mystery for me once and for all? And, if CSS is the way to go, should I go to the expense of having sites developed with tables converted to CSS in order to improve SEO??

Quick questions if you could please help when you get a chance. My questions are regarding what's better for the long run and our cost-effective for running multiple sites: Do you use dedicated IP's? If so, do you use only one for all your sites or do you use a dedicated IP for each domain?

What can I do to improve the placement of my photographs and graphics in Google Image Search?

What's the easiest way to do currency conversions online? I've heard that you can do it with Google itself, but I've never had any luck.

I am talking to a search engine marketing company that guarantees I will be placed in the top 3 sponsored positions on search engines. This sounds like a pretty good deal -- should I go for it?

Hi Dave. I'm working on some publicity for my little company and have just learned about the importance of search engine optimization. My Mom tells me, however, that visibility comes through press releases, but I have a sense she's hopelessly old school. What's your take on this?

I've been learning about how to write Web pages with HTML and recently had a friend ask me if I was paying attention to sculpting pagerank once my site went online. I have no idea what that means. Help!

I have been diligently applying all the search engine optimization techniques you talk about, Dave, but I'm still unclear on one key technique: how do I have more people link to me?

I've been talking to various people about improving my Web site and they keep talking about SEO. I've figured out that SEO = Search Engine Optimization, but I don't really understand what it means to improve my site on a search engine?

Is there any way to figure out the last time that Google visited my Web site? This would also be helpful when I analyze competitor's sites too...

Hi Dave. I've been trying to build an online business for almost a year now and still don't seem to earn more than pocket change each month. I've tried various approaches, from a drop-shipping e-commerce store to an information-based site with advertising to a course on search engine optimization. None of 'em have worked. So, tell me honestly, how do I really make money online?

Dave, I have a client who is considering using Kontera to insert keyword ad links. Our recommendation to them was to create internal linking, not keyword ads in the text. I remember you discussing removing the keyword ads. Was there a reason for this in regards to SERPs, or was that purely due to expert credibility?

I keep thinking that Google would hide this, but is there any way to figure out the last time that the Google search engine spider (Googlebot) visited a specific Web page? That'd be particularly useful for competitive research...

I have read lots of articles about how to constrain search results on Google by domain, by site, and even how to group words and include "negative" keywords to ensure that I don't get spurious matches. What I haven't figured out is whether there's any way to constrain my searches by date. For example, to just find material that's been updated or indexed in the last week. Doable?

This is a rather geeky SEO question, but I have heard that Google considers internal site links as relevant as external links and that it's smart to "nofollow" links that go to pages you don't want or need ranked in the search engine. Is that true? More importantly, is it safe?

I have rebuilt my website using the advice in your great book Growing Your Business with Google. I hope that I understood everything correctly! And, of course, I have a question for you: I understand that there are companies that will add you to a site with a higher PageRank for a fee. Do you recommend doing this, if the site is related to your line of work? If so, are there any sites that you recommend, including your own?

Dave, there are a bunch of new comments on my MySpace profile that link to "msplinks.com", even though they look like they're from different people. Is this some sort of unified attack on my profile or what?

I just noticed this week that sometimes when I search for information on Google that the top few results have a little plus sign next to them. I've seen the little shopping cart for Google Shopping, but what the heck does the plus sign denote?

I'm freaking out. I went and logged in to Google Analytics this morning and it reported this: "No pages from your site are currently included in Google's index due to violations of the webmaster guidelines. Please review our webmaster guidelines and modify your site so that it meets those guidelines." Ohmygod! What guidelines? How can I figure out what caused me to get the boot and how do I get my site re-included?

Hi Dave. I work at a small, new company and I've been hounding the CEO to start a corporate blog. He mainly interested in increasing Pagerank and I've explained that a corp-blog will help with Pagerank, page views, branding, et al. (That is correct, isn't it?) Well, he's warming up to the idea and I want to give a roll out plan, but my tech knowledge only goes so far.

Ideally I'd like propose something that means nobody else has to do more work, so I can own it. When I saw that Blogger is now offering custom domain names (or whatever it is), I thought that might be my ticket. Would that be a quick solution to what I'm trying to do? What exactly happens behind the scenes there? The URL shows our site, but the blog is actually on Blogger's servers? Will that undermine the Pagerank goodness we'd get from (the inenvitable) in-bound links to our (high quality content) corporate blog?

I love selling things but am not that strong with numbers. Are there suggestions on ways to organize my SEO, cost per click and stuff, but is easy on my brain?

Ok, I made a site for my new business and in the beginning it was automatically ranked #2 in google but now it has completely dissapeared and I simply can't get it back... what happened?@#!?? Yikes!

While scanning the requests for experts yesterday on PR Leads [aff] I noticed a most interesting query: "For a top home improvement retailer's e-magazine/newsletter, I need to find experts/leaders/authors who can speak to the benefits of using search engine optimization. If possible, in your reply, please include a short synopsis detailing how a small business should use this technique and why it is an essential tool."

A dilemma! A competitor of mine is getting great results in the search engines, and I finally figured out how. He's loading tons of keywords into a CSS layer and then positioning the layer so that it's invisible. Here's the CSS he's using:

  { position:absolute; left:-100px; top:10px; width:99px; height:400px; }

Can I, should I report him to Google, or is that a bad idea?

I was doing a Google search earlier today and noticed that some of the matching results were labeled as "Supplemental Results". What the heck is a supplemental result?

What I was wondering is are their stats on what percentage of users use which search engines. Out of Google, Yahoo! Search, MSN, AOL, AltaVista, AllTheWeb, and LookSmart what percentage does of the users does Google have and so on. Just trying to guage and advise customers on which pay per click medium offers the best bang for your buck. From your book Google is obviously the leader but the others have less viewers and also less advertisers I assume.

Thanks and again I really enjoyed your Google book and am having each of my employees read it.

I've been reading various bloggers write about the Google Custom Search Engine (though some people call it the Google Co-op search engine, is that the same thing?) and would like to try it. Can you show us step-by-step how to do it? Thanks!

I realize you're going to have a bit of a biased opinion given that you wrote a book on how to optimize your site for Google, but I keep getting offers from third party agencies and can't decide: should I hire someone to optimize my site, or do it myself?

What gives? In the past couple of weeks when I Google my site using my computer and my best keyword -- lace curtains -- my web site always comes up on the first page anywhere from 3rd place to 10th place. Maybe once a week it will go to 11th or 12th on the 2nd page. When my neighbor does the same my web site is listed as 31st. When I use the "Google Dance Tool" most of the time I don't see my web site on the first page so I click "next". I don't see it there either but if I click on "previous" to get back to the first page my web site now shows up on the first page on all three servers. Occasionally it actually does show up on the 2nd page. Am I really on the first page for most people or what? How can I really tell one way or another?

Hey Dave, I've been told that Google doesn't like squeeze pages any more and that that is why my clicks now cost about 100 times more than they used to. What gives? How do I get my cheap clicks back?

I recently found out that my main Web site has been kicked out (they call it "delisted") from the Google search engine completely. When I search for "site:xxx" on my domain name, there are zero matches. Scary! How the $#@$#$ do I get relisted or reincluded at Google? Thanks a million!

What do the marketing terms "white hat" and "black hat" mean, specifically? I know they have the connotations of "good" and "bad", but why? Thanks.

I hear local sites are proving popular. Should I build out separate sites for every local audience?

Are there cost-effective ways to get traffic other than SEO? Should I do late-night TV ads, for example, or pay for ads in print publications? I'm a bit lost and dont' have a huge budget. What would you suggest?

We are considering changing our company name but do not want to lose our natural search ranking in Google. Is there is sytem by which we can transfer rank or a step by step process that we can go through so as to make for the smoothest domain name change without losing eveything the existing site has acheived?

I'm a complete soccer nut and when I saw your earlier blog entry about the teamgeist football that they're using in the FIFA World Cup, I immediately knew you were a like-minded individual. Yeah! Now, I'm wondering if any of the search engines have snuck any cool or fun FIFA World Cup 2006 features into their search engines?

I think I'm doing all the "right things" to increase my page rank in Google, are there some "wrong things" that I can make sure to avoid?

In light of Yahoo's move to ban trademark bidding, how long before Google follows suit? And how will Google's "quality score" component impact that decision?

I've been hearing about the importance of keyword research but I have very little clue how to do it. Can you tell me why it's important and show me how to do some keyword research around cellphones and mobile telephones? Thanks.

I only just noticed this: when you search on the name of a movie on Google, it now shows you lots of cool information about the film, including where it's playing in your neighborhood. Very nice. But when did Google launch this new Google movie information service?

Something very strange is happening with my site's listing in Google. If I am at work and I type "childcare nvq courses harrow" into Google we appear about second in the rankings; however, if I am at home (about 10 miles away) we do not appear in the listings at all, even if I enter the unusual company name "auralern" in the search engine.

Why would we be listed if the search takes place in one location and not listed if the search takes place in another? I am baffled!

I realize that it's probably not something suitable for a family Web site, but I'm still curious: what are the most common terms or phrases that people type into search engines?

Hi Dave! I have a question regarding search engines and top level domains. Do you think that search engines look at this when they rank the site? Is it possible that .com has bigger value and caries more weight than, let's say, .net or .cc (my TLD)

Does the name of your site impact SEO? That is,if you use a nonsense name, will it negatively impact your search engine ranking? Would "www.thebestsearchengine.com" rank better than "www.google.com"?

I have a free lising with Google. I don't understand why my listing only appears if someone does a search on Google (Cheryl Ann Floral Design Conshohocken PA) If I elimanate the town and state which is Conshohocken PA I am not listed. I don't know how to fix this. I would like to be listed under (Wedding Flowers Philadelphia PA) (Flowers Conshohocken PA) (Flowers Montgomery County PA) etc.

Would you be kind enough to point me the right direction: If I search for my website in Google like this "Holiday Sun Direct" I am not listed. However if I search Google like this "holidaysundirect" I am listed. Can you tell me how to correct this on my website please, or point me in direction of someone who could help me?

I recently purchased a web site that was ranked number 1 on Google. Within 24 hours of the ownership change, Google dropped the ranking significantly to page 5. Does Google look at DNS changes, and could this be the reason for the lower ranking? Any other ideas of what could have caused this? FYI, the ranking in Yahoo was unaffected.

Dave, maybe you can explain something for me: my Web site Freedom For Animals.org apparently has a PageRank of two out of ten (2/10), and I don't really understand what that means. Does it mean, for example, that my organization's site is #2 out of 10 hits?

How can I convince the Google robot that my keywords use the word cat and my page is optimized with the word "cat" more than "cats web". I want Google search to list me under the word "cat": I am listed at the number 3 spot on the first page of a Google search if you use the words "cats web" or #1 on the 1st page if you use "cats web page"

Should I leave everything alone or should I go for the better listing? My site is "A Cats Web Page of Rawhawk & the Hooligans" at rawhawk.net. I have tried to relist with Google a few months ago but, the search stayed the same?

Dave, the sites that are linking back to me are using a graphical "badge" rather than a textual link. This is a graphics link back, which according to your Google book, doesn't rank as highly as a text link. Yet, my audience loves these. Now what?

Just finished your new Google book and I'm dismayed to discover that my web site may be a link farm not a portal. The goal of this now updated site is to have students talk to other students via reviews of the handout links by doing "reviews", like Amazon.com

My Google rank is currently 7, so I must be doing something right, but a link: report only shows 70 links to the site. Yet I know that there are many more. What gives? Is my site considered a link farm? and thereby not getting indexed by Google?

Dave, I'm enjoying your new book Growing Your Business with Google. However, I have a question relating to your advice to post navigation links on the right rather than the left side: I understand that doing so could improve results placement, but this improvement might be less important than ease of use of the site.

Other authorities point out that left-side navigation links are more-or-less standard, and that users are more likely to stay with a site if site elements appear where expected. Could you comment?

New to the web, paid a company back in March to register my new website with all the search engines. As I am now reading your book (Growing your Biz with Google) in August, I see that my website has a 0 page rank! does this mean that I am not even registered with "Google"? Did I get ripped off?

If you could check and see if I am even in existence with Google and Yahoo, that would be great. If not, please tell me how I can fix this problem as fast as possible, as I am currently working on a "review website" with Microsoft Front Page 2003, that I plan on using to load up with links back to my main website, and I would assume I am spinning my wheels if I am not even registered? If you can let me know if this tactic (creating a review website of various other home business opportunities) will work, I would be most appreciative! I have had my site up since March and it just sits stagnant!

Do you think this will breath some immediate life into the site? (ie: traffic?) Thanks in advance, Dave. Love the book so far! Also, when you agree to add other links to your website, where do you put them? Should I create an entire page just for links? And where is the best place to get into reciprocol linking when your site is relatively new? Does reciprocol linking work as well as building a review site? (ie: one way linking?) and lastly, how do you suggest registering a new website in the future so that I don't have this problem again?

Dave, I've been reading and hearing about Google's mythical PageRank for quite a while, but what bugs me is that I haven't figured out how to ascertain my PageRank on a Mac. I know that Google has their Google Toolbar for Windows, but I don't want to have Windows just for that purpose! Sheesh. What's a guy to do?

I have heard that Mac has issues with Google and SEO-related tactics. Is there any truth to this or is it all bunk? I am looking in to buy a Mac and move away from the PC world but I am getting conficting reports. Please, Dave, give me the truth about PC vs Mac.

Dave, I just heard about a new project out of Yahoo's research labs called Mindset that apparently offers a slick new interface to searching the Web. What do you know about it?

Dave, I just read about Google having some sort of sitemap feature that lets you ensure that their spider sees all of your pages. I kinda wonder whether this is a good thing or not. What have you been hearing about it?

Hi Dave. I know you haven't included AdSense in your own RSS feeds (yet?) but have watched the space closely. My question to you: I am interested in adding Google AdSense to my own RSS feeds and am wondering if there are any best practices you might suggest?

Dave, I just bumped into Google Local and, wow! I want to be included. How do I get my business into the Google Local database?

I read somewhere that Google and others are to start searching meta keywords 'within' Flash animations. Is this true?

The reason is that I want to create a website using an interactive city map on the homepage, close to the top. I know that Google will only cache the first few hundred KB of content, so my concern is getting keywords into the top of the page without pushing the interactive map down too far.

Dave, I just read an article of yours where you say not to hide keyword-content with matching font and background color. I'm curious to know if the same is true for a hidden layer containing keyword-content? There is so much to learn about SEO and what are the best techniques to use!

After hearing a lot about it, I went over to SitePoint and read an interesting article by a "search engine optimization expert" wherein he enumerates his list of fifteen of the most egregious techniques by which companies and individuals "spam" the search engines. What's search engine spam, you ask? It's using inappropriate and deceitful methods of manipulating the HTML or other elements of a site to generate a higher ranking than the site would otherwise be granted by a typical search engine relevance calculation.

Here's a topic that should be obvious, but isn't: how should you best code links on your site from page to page? Should you use something like "page two" or "continued..." or "more" with the page filenames as the links? Should you use absolute links that always begin with a leading / (as in "/reviews.html"), should you always use relative links (as in "../reviews.html") or should you use fully qualified links (as in "http://www.free-web-money.com/reviews.html")?

Here's a search engine optimization concept that most people don't think about: make sure you have keywords and key phrases in your TITLE tag. You know what the TITLE tag is, it's the tag that gives you the name of the page on the Window frame in your browser, and it's remarkable how few sites pay any attention to what's in that critical search engine optimization (SEO) field.

Search engine optimization, or "SEO" in the biz, isn't only for people trying to turn their Web site into a revenue machine, to make money online, but can really be useful for everyone building Web sites. There are lots of different facets to writing, designing and adjusting your Web pages to maximize the chance of them being a top result for search terms, but one of the best - and easiest - is to work with keyword density.