Today, I got an Instant Message on msn from a regular reader. They suggested that I should write a decent article on Robots.txt because he was searching and could not find a good one. So I decided that would make a good topic on Balkhis SEO Section. First what you should do is view my Robots.txt. Now you can copy and paste the entire thing for all I care. But it wouldn’t make sense if you don’t understand what it is doing.

The main purpose of Robots.txt is controlling the Search Engine bots. This file single handedly controls what Search Engine bots can index and what they can’t index. This file plays an important role in avoiding duplicate content.

Hint:

You use Disallow: to Disallow files. (Disallow: /page/)
You use Allow: to Allow files (Allow: /about/)

The main thing you need to know in the robots.txt is that the $ sign at the end means file extension. So like I have on Balkhis /*.css$.

Now lets go onto analyze some of the important parts of my feeds that deals with Duplicate Content.

Disallow: /category/ – This code prevents a whole heck of duplicate content. Because your category contains the exact same thing as a single post page does. So you don’t want bots to see this.

Disallow: /page/ – I have mentioned this multiple times that archives are duplicate content. Pretty Obvious. So add this one as well.

Disallow: /tag/ – I don’t know if you are using tag or not. Just add it incase if you ever do decide to use it. I have tags on my Archive page and my search page, so I have it there. Because content categorized by tags are still the same content.

Disallow: */feed/ – Personally I feel that users should pay more attention to my blog rather than my feeds. So I have all feeds blocked.

Disallow: /*.js$
Disallow: /*.inc$
Disallow: /*.css$

I don’t think that spiders should be allowed to see any of your javascripts, css, or include files let alone letting them index it. So block these off as well.

Disallow: /*? – This code doesn’t index any url that have a ? mark in it. So use this one also.

Now I hope you know what my robots.txt is doing. Now feel free to use it as a sample one for your site.

I got a private Plurk message with a question which is a winner? Content or Backlinks? Often that I see people argue on this subject. Some say Content is King, and others say without backlinks (Marketing) content is worthless.

I have done SEO for all of my sites either by myself, or with help from other experts. Now when you are making a website, you would think how will I attract visitors to my website? Now I will give you a sample scenario answer that you will get:

SEO Expert 1: You need keyword rich content to attract your users to your website. With time, you should rank high in search engines.

SEO Expert 2: You need high backlinks counts, so you rank high in search engines. Adapt a powerful link-building strategy and start your website.

Syed Balkhi: Both of you are wrong. You need keyword rich content and along with the content you need powerful link-building strategy. Read on the post to see why?

Webmasters like you and me want higher rankings in Search Engines therefore we try to do Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for our websites by using multiple SEO Techniques. In this post I will be discussing five of the most dangerous SEO Techniques that one can use.

Link Farms
When I say link farms, I dont mean web directories, but what I mean are pages that consist bunch of links. 100s of links that have no bearing to the content what so ever. Alot of people would make a page in their inner directories full with links and make multiple pages to boost rankings of their other sites. This technique was used once by alot of old schoolers until Search Engines figured out the issue, and start BANNING the sites, yup not penaltising, you will be banned. Meaning no page left in Google… so when you hit site:xxx.com you won’t see anything.

Embedding Invisible Text links

Yeah this is a sneaky way also called black hat. In this technique users actually embed text links on their page by making them the same color, so users don’t see them while they are there. This technique is old. As time goes, users were getting smart, so they would just select all and eventually find the text links. Then these black hatters came up with a technique to add their link in the content by having a display:none; css tag. This technique is a BIG NO NO, and google has even said it. Be very careful when you use free templates on your website because some cheap designers will sell out and put links in your website and you won’t even know it. I remember reading about a year ago, Jeff of Aviva had this one designer who did alot of free templates for him. In each template he added his own links and other websites and set them there. Someone found it and reported it to Jeff. Jeff immidiately released a note to everyone, but this designer’s reputation went down. (I can’t find the article otherwise I would’ve showed you). But the bottom line is this method is unacceptable, and you shouldn’t do it because this can lead to a ban as well.

Using Irrelevant Keywords

Alot of webmasters just want to rank high for every keyword, so they will put tons of keywords on their website even though when the keywords are not even related to the site’s content. When a bot spiders your website they will see the keywords, and when they try to match your site’s with related sites they will have tons of different sort of sites which will cause you to rank high temporarily until the Search Engines catches you and penaltize you. I haven’t heard of anyone getting banned by just using this technique, but I know people who have been penaltised by doing this.

Cloaking (BIG NO NO)

Cloaking is the worst thing you can do to your website because not only it will get your website banned, but it will get you a bad reputation. How? Did you ever hear of Fake PR? Cloaking is the way to obtain fake pagerank. Cloaking is basically when a webmaster places a code in their header which distinguishes the users and search engines. So if the visitor is a user they will see the visible page, but if the user is a search engine than the server will show them something else. Black Hatters who use this technique tend to show the search engine some really high pr site which leads the black hatters to get a high pagerank, but not for long because usually within one – two pr updates they get caught and banned from google and pagerank (GREY). Also people can see it if they know what they are looking for in your website’s code.

Overuse of a keyword / Keyword Repitition

This technique can get you penaltise, I haven’t seen anyone getting banned from this technique. Basically this is when a webmaster uses the keyword improperly in their website. Such as an over use of a certain keyword to rank high for that website. Example: Myspace proxy is a myspace proxy that allows proxified pages to proxy users who uses proxy etc etc. As you see the keyword doesn’t make sense and it is just a repetition of one keyword.

I just want to give this as a headsup to the beginners, so they don’t start doing this type of techniques because people who do these preach them also. They say this works, and it does work for short term, but you get banned for long term !!! I don’t think it is worth it.

I got a question over the email from one of the reader after they saw the post I answered yesterday. How to get Top 10 rankings in google for your keyword? I am going to answer this question in my post. Eventhough I mentioned Google because that is the most popular Search Engine, but this technique will work with other popular seach engines as well such as Yahoo, and MSN.

As a webmaster, each and every single one of us wants our websites to rank high in seach engines to get organic traffic. A traffic that you don’t necessarily pay for which is targetted. But sometimes it becomes a hard task to rank in the top 10 in google and other search engines. While it is a hard task, It is not impossible. With the right techniques used, you can rank in the top 10 before you will know it.

The ranking process will begin at the selection of keywords. Quiet frankly I believe as the generation is getting more internet savvy, it is pointless to target one word keywords. Such as website, or blogs. People know by searching this sort of terms in google they will get tons of results and it is too hard to find what they are looking for.

Take the keyword ‘Blogs’ for example shows 697 million results in google.

Whereas say the user was looking how to set up a blog. They won’t look at the term blogs. They will look up the term “How to set up a blog”. So if you rank high for this term it will be more beneficial for you rather than the term blogs itself. It is good to rank for one word keywords, but in my eyes those are just bragging rights nothing more. So pick your keywords wisely. (Preferably long tail keywords)

Next you would need to have a Search Engine Optimized pages in your website. Meaning you need to have a decent coded design which is seo friendly. Next thing you want to do is make sure that you are using the keywords in the right places. Such as titles of categories (Hint: these are usually h2 tags), For bloggers titles of post (because these are h2 tags). Also you need to use these titles on image alt tags, title tags, in your meta description, meta keywords. Try to use them differently, don’t just copy and paste 3 word keywords in all your image alts. Make it relative.

Which takes me to my next point is that you need to build links to that page of your site. Wait a minute did I just say build links. No I meant build relevant links. Don’t just go out and buy links on any site that is cheap or have high rankings. But buy it from the sites that are on your niche. I have seen from past projects that google tend to weigh the relevant links more than the non-relevant links. Also buying links on just any site can also get you penaltised as google is getting strict on text links.

What could be a better way to get tons of backlinks than having quality unique content on that page. By providing content that attract your audience, you are likely to get backlinks from other sites in your niche. Original content can also get you higher ranking in Seach Engines, so use that. Don’t even think about using duplicate content because it will cause you to be penaltised in google.

Above is a small guide that you can use to rank in the top 10. I am sure you will have no problems if you do the general tips that I listed above. If anyone have any more questions that they want answered feel free to email me using the contact form.

Yesterday I posted about 5 things that can hurt your Search Engine Ranking Positions of your Website, and in there I advised bloggers to use All in one SEO Pack for Wordpress. But then I decided that it would help my users more if I post what I am doing with Balkhis.

Before you begin reading you should download the All in one SEO Plugin if you haven’t done already.

For those who don’t know what All in one SEO Plugin does for your wordpress this is for you. This plugin optimizes your blog for search engine. It allows you to select how the page titles of your blog will be generated, it gives you an option to have unique meta description, meta keywords, and title for all your posts and pages.

Now once you install this plugin, you will have to go to your admin panel > settings > and you will see a separate tab for all in one seo pack.

Settings for Balkhis looks some thing like this

I am not using archives so if you are using the archive make sure that in your settings option, you go down and deindex archive pages. I put the title for my blog in tags and search keywords other than that I don’t abuse my title keyword, and neither should you.

The above settings are not set in stone. This is just my way of doing it, and it has been working for me. Therefore if you are starting your blog and get this plugin (which you should) don’t leave the settings as default. Use this one instead.