Last spring, the Sitemaps protocol was expanded to include the autodiscovery of Sitemaps using robots.txt to let us and other search engines supporting the protocol know about your Sitemaps. We subsequently also announced support for Sitemap cross-submissions using Google Webmaster Tools, making it possible to submit Sitemaps for multiple hosts on a single dedicated host. So it was only time before we took the next logical step of marrying the two and allowing Sitemap cross-submissions using robots.txt. And today we’re doing just that.

We’re making it easier for webmasters to place Sitemaps for multiple hosts on a single host and then letting us know by including the location of these Sitemaps in the appropriate robots.txt.

How would this work? Say for example you want to submit a Sitemap for each of the two hosts you own, www.example.com and host2.google.com. For simplicity’s sake, you may want to host the Sitemaps on one of the hosts, www.example.com. For example, if you have a Content Management System (CMS), it might be easier for you to change your robots.txt files than to change content in a directory.

You can now exercise the cross-submission support via robots.txt (by letting us know the location of the Sitemaps):

a) The robots.txt for www.example.com would include:
Sitemap: www.example.com/sitemap-www-example.xml

b) And similarly, the robots.txt for host2.google.com would include:
Sitemap: www.example.com/sitemap-host2-google.xml

By indicating in each individual host’s robots.txt file where that host’s Sitemap lives you are in essence proving that you own the host for which you are specifying the Sitemap. And by choosing to host all of the Sitemaps on a single host, it becomes simpler to manage your Sitemaps.

We are making this announcement today on Sitemaps.org as a joint effort. To see what our colleagues have to say, you can also check out the blog posts published by Yahoo! and Microsoft.
Posted by A Googler

Tags: age, CMS, Google, Web, Yahoo

What I have just read on Google’s official blog surprises me, Google is a great business supplier to us and partner so I really like most of the things they do.

But I thought is was really inappropriate for them to comment on the Microsoft bid for Yahoo! in the way they have just done.

Essentially despite best intentions in the UK at least in mind share and marketplace reality Google has a virtual monopoly in search. So it grates on me for them to object to one company buying another.

If they believe the best ideas win through and in the free market then surely a more credible competitor in the search business would be a healthy thing and deliver greater innovation.

To me they are sounding more like the monopolist and a scared one as well. I mean what kind of a question is this:

“Could a combination of the two take advantage of a PC software monopoly to unfairly limit the ability of consumers to freely access competitors’ email, IM, and web-based services?”

The answer is no David they couldn’t. It’s pretty simple what would happen if internet explorer stopped working with Google it’s your job to fix your web site to work with internet explorer and if it broke your site it would break most of the internet too!

Please don’t pretend you are that bothered about IM why does it matter? If windows stopped working with my email I would move from windows. There are credible competitors like Ubuntu now and Apple is doing much better as well so I feel like Microsoft is not in the position it once was.

Consumers will decide what they want and there is pretty much nothing I can see Microsoft doing that would affect Google’s services or other competitors. I think the whole post comes across as bleating and ridiculous. If Google is so upset why doesn’t it buy Yahoo!? In my view that would be a lot worse for competition and all that will happen if MSFT buys YHOO will be that Google will have to work harder to innovate and stay ahead.

Tags: age, Free, Google, Internet, Internet Explorer, Software, Ubuntu, Web, Yahoo

Age is a very important factor in Search Engine Optimization. There are several different types of age that can play roles in how Search Engines rank websites. Knowing these factors can be helpful in determining how long it will take for a website to rank well. Keep in mind age is only part of the algorithm, as other factors such as link popularity and keyword rich content will play a major role as well in rankings.

Every few months the factors that effect the Search Engines’ ranking algorithm may change sometimes slightly, sometimes dramatically. The best thing you can possibly do is stick to your guns and get good quality links to your site and get good quality “original� content on your site and grow your site with new quality content as often as possible.

Yahoo and MSN like clean, well written, well linked sites as much as Google does.

In the past we noticed a certain order in rankings, whereas MSN would pick up changes first, then Yahoo, then Google. We now see Yahoo takes the longest. So age may be a big factor for Yahoo’s current algorithm. Google has always put a high priority on age, hence, we have the Google Sandbox Effect, where new domains are reported to take 9 months or longer to rank. MSN places more importance on Content, Keywords and Links, so younger sites have a chance to rank in MSN. Knowing and understanding age factors is part of the battle, these are the factors that no one can fake. Popularity can be faked or handed out via networks of friends or businesses, but Age cannot be manipulated, its the purest factor in rankings, however, it obviously does not count for quality.

When we talk about Search Engine Optimization, Age is:

* Domain Age - Age of your domain.
* Link Age - Age of links pointing to your site.
* Site Age - When the site was first found by each Search Engine (this is not always the creation date, that would be domain age).
* Page Age - The Age of the page when first found by a Search Engine (this is not always the creation date of the page).

The one factor in search engine optimization that no one can fake is when the Search Engines first found the website and the data they have about the site at that point. Early data can effect your long-term rankings, so how sites start can be important for their future rankings.

Determining these age factors can be useful to get a realistic understanding of how long a site can take to rank well. While ranking well can be an endless time cycle for competitive terms, younger sites that are becoming aware of the importance of Search Engine optimization, can have a realistic goal.

For instance anyone claiming that a brand new domain will be able to rank at the top of a particular Search Engine in 3 months for any competitive term is pulling your chain, unless you own the domain with the vanity keyword term in it and that is the term you want.

It is important to consider age as part of an SEO process. Utilizing existing age and existing aged links and anchor text, can turn very competitive long-term campaigns, into successful campaigns with a realistic time frame for rankings.

Tags: age, age factors, domain age, Google, link age, msn, page age, search engine optimization, SEO, SEO, seoimage, site age, Yahoo

 Seo Tips
If you’re like most online webmasters, then you have probably read one article after the other about search engine optimization. Most of them rehash the same old information and you end up wading through tons of fluff. However, this isn’t one of those articles. Listed below are 7 advanced SEO tips that you won’t find on every digital corner.
1. Syndicating Articles that Link to Your Sitemap

As you probably know, syndicating articles is one of the best methods for obtaining one-way backlinks.

They are also valuable pieces of search engine bait because search engine crawlers are frequent visitors to many high-profile article directories. If you want to get the spiders quickly crawling your site, simply submit an informative article to a site like EzineArticles, GoArticles, or ArticleCity.

However, there’s another article marketing strategy that isn’t mentioned much in marketing circles. This tactic can get the crawlers searching deeper into your site and indexing more of your pages. Simply link to your sitemap within the resource box. This will send the spiders straight to a content buffet where they can quickly slurp up all of your pages.

2. Translating Your Website Into Other Languages

Are you marketing in just one language? If so, you are missing out on 64.8% of your marketing potential. This is because 64.8% of the world is surfing the internet in a language other than English. By becoming a multilingual marketer, you immediately open up a stream of new markets. Google alone crawls web pages in 35 different languages.

One of the best ways to attract worldwide traffíc is to translate your site and register it with both English and foreign-language search engines and directories. If you are a seasoned SEO, you’ll be happy to hear that the competition in foreign search engines is much less than in those of the United States.

In addition, online foreign language markets are currently growing at a much faster rate than English speaking markets.

You have the opportuníty to tap into this market while it’s in an exponential growth phase.

3. ROR Sitemaps

As you probably know, sitemaps are important for making sure your site can be completely spidered and indexed by the search engines. Unfortunately, many of these sitemaps are specific to one search engine or another. For this reason, there have been a number of Google and Yahoo site map generators produced in recent years.

However, there is an alternative that is even more exciting. These are ROR sitemaps and they are readable by all search engines, not just by Google or Yahoo.

ROR is an exciting new sitemap tool that uses XML feeds to describe your website. These sitemaps are structured feeds that enable search engines to complement text search with structured information to better interpret the meaning of your site. With a ROR sitemap, search engines can better understand your products, services, images, newsletters, articles, podcasts, and anything else that you want to describe.

For example, if you are selling products, a ROR file enables you to document your product names, descriptions, prices, images, availability, affilíate programs, and any other

relevant information. Search engine crawlers like the Googlebot have an enormous job to do. It’s time we start helping them to better understand our content.

4. Keyword Phrases that Convert

Selecting the right keyword phrases is the single most important aspect of any SEO campaign. Unfortunately, many webmasters target the wrong keywords. Too many of us target very general keywords like “real estate” or “internet marketing”. Although these terms get lots of visitors, it is unlikely that you will be able to rank highly for them. Then, even if you do, this type of traffíc produces very low conversion rates because it does not target prospects.

You will be much more successful, if you target keyword phrases that are 3-4 words long. These terms are much less competitive and have been proven to convert much better than keywords that are 1 to 2 words long.

Who do you think is more likely to buy; someone who goes to Google and searches for “ipod” or someone who searches for “4gb black ipod nano”? Obviously, the person who searches for a more specific phrase is much closer to making a buying decision.

5. GoogSpy

Would you like to get an in-depth view of how your competitors run their business? Well, you can do exactly that with an online service known as GoogSpy. GoogSpy is a free research tool that will tell you what keywords your competitors are bidding on.

This tool tracks over 500,000 keywords every day from Google and then loads this goldmine of information into the GoogSpy.com database. Using this tool, you can browse by company or by search term.

This tool is extremely powerful. Unfortunately, many people take it for granted. This service basically hands you a business strategy on a silver platter. Maybe we should just keep this one to ourselves and enjoy the benefits of being one step ahead of our competition.

For example, let’s say you wanted to do some in-depth research on Overstock.com, one of the largest companies online. You would simply go to googspy.com and type in overstock.com. You will then be shown thousands of words that this company bids on. These keywords are proven profít generators. Research like this would normally cost thousands of dollars, but they are providing it free of charge.

If you want to find keywords with high conversion rates, simply type in words such as buy and purchase. You will be shown keyword phrases that are bid on that include the words buy or purchase. These are very lucrative keyword phrases because the person who types in “buy sony playstation 2″ knows exactly what they want. They’re not just looking around, they are in buying mode. These are the type of keywords you want to bid on. Using GoogSpy, you can uncover these hidden gems in seconds.

Other high-converting keyword phrases include brand names and product names. Type in the keyword “camera” and you will find thousands of different brands and product names for cameras. These keywords are some of the best keywords because of their high conversion rate.

6. Internal Links Within Content

The navigation of your site is a crucial element of your search engine optimization campaign. Each link within your navigational structure should correlate with a keyphrase that you are trying to rank for.

However, you can also include internal links within your content. For example, let’s say you have written an article about online marketing. Within the article are a number of keyword phrases. Some of these phrases include “link popularity” and “web site traffíc”. If you have other articles within your site that pertain to these topics, then you should definitely link those keyword phrases to those articles. By doing this, you can increase the link popularity of other pages within the same site.

There are very few sites that take advantage of this optimization technique. By doing this, you enable the search engines to find and index much more of your site. These internal links also contribute to a higher ranking because of the anchor text that is used.

Many people only think of inbound links from outside websites when trying to raise their link popularity. However, the internal link structure is also a major ranking factor.

7. Using Your Log Files for SEO

Your server logs reveal very important information about your site. If you learn to use them properly, they can quickly help to maximize your site’s traffíc and conversion rates.

One of the most valuable pieces of information found in your log files are search phrases. The log files will tell you exactly which keywords people are using to find your website.

Once you have optimized a page, the log files will tell you how people are finding that page and what keywords they are searching for to get there. If you find that people are using keywords that you hadn’t thought of to get to a certain page, it would probably be in your best interest to further optimize that page for those keywords.

You might also want to create a new page optimized for that particular term. This is especially true if a new page would enable you to serve better information on the phrase being searched for.

In addition, by looking at how your site is found organically, you can determine whether the same keyword phrases belong in your paid search campaigns. Only choose the ones that are highly relevant. You will find that these keyword phrases have the best conversion rate.

Tags: age, Free, Google, Internet, search engine optimization, SEF, SEO, SEO, Yahoo