The Good and the Bad of SEO: From Google’s Mouth!

There are some questions which have to be asked from the persons that are working in Google. Recently Google has given answers to some questions which needed to get verification via a conference. This article is based on what Google thinks about good and bad of SEO.

This conference is held because everyone wants to ask some specific questions from Google employees. They are pretty sure about it but want to hear it right from Google’s mouth.

Is PageRank still important?
The answer is yes – PageRank has always been important to Google. They couldn’t go into details but it is as we suspected. Google uses the algorithm to determine rankings. I think that PR is the most important thing to determine the ranking of website.

Are dynamic URLs bad?
Google says that a dynamic URL with 2 parameters “should” get indexed. URLs themselves don’t contribute too much to the overall ranking algorithms. In other words, a page named Page1.asp will likely perform as well as Keyword.asp.
The difference however is that in almost all cases I’ve seen the static URLs outrank the dynamic URLs especially in highly competitive or even moderately competitive keyword spaces.

Is URL rewriting OK in Google’s eyes?
The answer is YES, provided the URL is not too long. Basically, the length of URL is not the issue but if it becomes too long then they cause problems. The important thing is the content of the page. Google says that, content is the king. Better optimization is the sign of Good SEO.

 Do you need to use the Google Sitemap tool?
The sitemap submission tool was created by Google to provide a way for sites which normally do not get crawled effectively to now become indexed by Google.
If your site is already getting crawled effectively by Google you do not need to use the Google sitemap submission tool.
Your pages get indexed via the sitemap does not mean they will rank. It depends on the content and other technical issues.

Does clean code make that much of a difference?
Again, the answer is yes. By externalizing any code you can and by cleaning up things like tables you can greatly improve your site.

First, externalizing JavaScript and CSS helps reduce code bloat which makes the visible text more important. Your keyword density goes up which makes the page more authoritative.
Similarly, minimizing the use of tables also helps reduce the HTML to text ratio, making the text that much more important.

Do Keywords in the domain name harm or help you?
The short answer is neither. If you named your page on any keyword it will not put any negative effect on page ranking. But if name of the page is long then it can cause delay in indexing.
How many links should you have on your sitemap?

Google recommends 100 links per page.
Google will take some time to index pages having more than 100 links. If your site has more pages than try to split your sitemap and interlink them, or create a directory structure. Because logically organized site gets complete and faster indexing

Can Google boat follow links in Flash or JavaScript?
Google does not follow links in Flash or JavaScript. So it is recommended having your links elsewhere on the page.

It is OK to have links in flash or JavaScript but you need to account for the crawlers not finding them. Therefore the use of a sitemap can help get those links found and crawled.
Overall, while I didn’t learn anything earth shattering, it was good to get validation “from the horses mouth” so to speak.