SEO Tip #99: How Should I Handle Localized Content?

SEO Tip  #99: How Should I Handle Localized Content?

Let’s say I want to add multiple languages/countries to mysite.com. Would I be better off including all translations within mydomain.com or would I be better off creating mydomain.fr, mydomain.nl, mydomain.ca, etc.?

Matt Cutts: Well mydomain.ca is Canada so if you’re English you don’t need to translate that one unless you wanted to add a lot of local color to it. But for example if you had


Continue Reading »

SEO Tip #98: Are There Any SEO Certification Programs You Are Aware Of?

SEO Tip #98: Are There Any SEO Certification Programs You Are Aware Of?

Matt Cutts: Nick has asked about industry certification, which is kind of a hot button topic. I’ll answer the easy question first, which is Google does provide certification for certified AdWords professionals. That is something that’s relatively simple. You can check that people are very competent with the program, they understand all the mechanics, the ins and outs, that sort of stuff. Certification of SEO’s is a lot touchier as far
Continue Reading »

SEO Tip #97: Is It Okay To Sell Links As Long As We Use The No-Follow Attribute?

SEO Tip #97: Is It Okay To Sell Links As Long As We Use The No-Follow Attribute?

Matt Cutts: The answer is yes. The fact is what Google cares about is whether a link that you sell flows PageRank. And if it doesn’t flow PageRank, if it doesn’t affect search engines, it’s none of our business at that point. Now if you are in Europe you might have some various laws that apply to you. If you’re in the United States, the Federal Trade Commission wants you to
Continue Reading »

SEO Tip #96: Why Are Links Used In Ranking When They All Have The No-Follow Attribute?

SEO Tip #96: Why Are Links Used In Ranking When They All Have The No-Follow Attribute?

Matt Cutts: Let me start with your second point that only a small percentage of the links count; if you actually look at the volume of links on the web and then look at the percentage of links that have the no-follow attribute it turns out that is a very small percentage. I know that the perception is that whenever you’re trying to get links they are all no-follow and you
Continue Reading »

SEO Tip #95: How Should I Configure ‘If Modified Since’ On Database Driven Pages?

SEO Tip #95: How Should I Configure ‘If Modified Since’ On Database Driven Pages?

Matt Cutts: Great question, very specific, so let’s dive in. So for people who don’t know, suppose you have a static file, you can say “if modified since” in the http header is to say how essentially how old this file is. If it hasn’t been modified since 2007, Google doesn’t have to keep fetching it all the time or we can just check whether it has been updated and
Continue Reading »

SEO Tip #94: How Does Google Find Pages That Don’t Have Any Links To Them?

SEO Tip #94: How Does Google Find Pages That Don’t Have Any Links To Them?

Matt Cutts: You almost threw me for a loop with this question because I read all the way through and was ready to give my answer but then the last sentence completely changed my answer so I want to answer it both ways. Starting with the beginning of your question on how Google can index things even if there aren’t any links pointing to the particular page people can always submit
Continue Reading »

SEO Tip #93: How Can A Site Rank For A Keyword That Isn’t Anywhere On It’s Page?

SEO Tip #93: How Can A Site Rank For A Keyword That Isn’t Anywhere On It’s Page?

Matt Cutts: Okay, let’s take a step back and put this in the realm of universities. Suppose I do the search ‘cattle’, a lot of people might expect Berkley to show up because a lot of people call Berkley cattle. If I do a search for ‘tar heel’ maybe I expect University of North Carolina or UNC.edu to show up even if the word tar heel isn’t anywhere on that
Continue Reading »

SEO Tip #92: How Precise Is the Number of Results In A Site: Query?

SEO Tip #92: How Precise Is the Number of Results In A Site: Query?

Matt Cutts: That’s a fantastic question. Let me share a little bit of trivia that not many people realize; site: queries attempt to estimate how many pages are in our index but we would never claim it as an exact amount that is completely accurate. In fact let me just do a couple of queries and mention the number of results. Site:yahoo.com returns 138 million results and it says “about” 138
Continue Reading »

SEO Tip #91: Should I Be Worried about Ad Servers Affecting My Site’s Speed and Ranking?

SEO Tip #91: Should I Be Worried about Ad Servers Affecting My Site’s Speed and Ranking?

Matt Cutts: The rough way to think about it is this; first think about it in terms of what happens up until the on load event. So there are a lot of ways where you can do asynchronous JavaScript to make sure that things happen after the on load event. For example Google Analytics recently introduced code which will handle things asynchronously. So you don’t have to worry anymore about, “ok,
Continue Reading »