SEO 2020 FORUM

[Charles Heflin]

Matt Cutts of Google recently began creating videos to answer some questions that webmasters are having.

I find it interesting that his answers to many of the questions supports what I and Russell have been teaching here at SEO 20/20 and ThemeZoom and the upcoming Master Plan.

Check 'em out:

Matt Cutts' Disclaimer - http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1147504221425038991

Qualities of a Good Site - http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5179191836301432169

Some SEO Myths - http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3583760678227172395

Optimize for Search Engines or for Users - http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8553629667451959310&hl=en

Static Vs. Dynamic URLs - http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6860320126300142609

How to Structure a Site - http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1156145545372854697

Supplemental Results - http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3494613828170903728

Does the Google Webspam team use Google Analytics - http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-9028425054136856586

Google Terminology - http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-9028425054136856586

Enjoy

Charles

[themezoom]

Hi,

Of special interest on the topic of Silo:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1156145545372854697

Please be advised- Matt Cutts is a bit more than a Google Employee:

http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PG01&s1=20050071741&OS=20050071741&RS=20050071741

Notice Matt's name under "Inventors".

He would be "Employee of the month".

; - )

- Russell

[A_LeBoeuf]

Hi Russell,

Matt seems non-plussed about the idea of directories. He doesn't subscribe to the idea that it would help much. We were under the impression that it would make a world of difference.

Care to elaborate on that please?

Anne and Bernie

[rento]

To make things easier
http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=label:matt%20cutts

[Charles Heflin]

[JoeCool]

[A_LeBoeuf]

[Charles Heflin]

[themezoom]

Hi folks,

It is important that you listen very closely to what Matt is actually saying.

This is why I have transcribed it directly. He is, I believe, speaking about this as it relates directly "keyword placement".

I would also add there there is pretty difinitive research on folders versus .html for high ranking pages- at least statiticailly probable reason to believe that it DOES matter if there is a folder or a extension.

The confusion is if the succes of directory based sites is DIRECT or INDIRECT. See my paper below.

Remember, as soon as there is a TECHNIQUE or a METHOD there is a tendency to miss the big picture.

I believe there is a COMBINATION of factors that directories influence the Google scoring bot with.

- Russell


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Matt Cutts: How to structure a site?

SEO tips straight from Google’s mouth . . . well almost.

The following is a brief summary of the SEO videos created by Google employee Matt Cutts. Matt is also named as one of the inventors on the Google Patent. This summary is provided compliments of Theme Zoom ™

1 Matt (paraphrased): There are over 5,000 languages spoken on planet earth. Google supports around 100. watch the video.

TZ comment: Be sure to see http://www.google.com/language_tools?hl=en for more information on Google’s foreign language search engines.

2 Matt (paraphrased): Generally Google won’t penalize for a 301 redirects when done properly- especially since the sites were very related to the theme and topic of the original site.

3 Question: How do I theme a website using directories? Do you put your main keyword in a directory or on your index page? If using directories, do you use a directory for each set of keywords?

Matt (exact transcript): This is a good question. I think you are thinking too much about your keywords and not enough about your website architecture. So . . . this is just for me . . . I prefer a tree-like architecture so everything branches out in nice sort of “even paths”. Its also good if things are broken down by topic. So if you are selling “clothes” you might have “sweaters” as one directory and “shoes” as another directory or something like that.

If you do that sort of thing, what you end up with is your keywords do sit in directories. As far as directories versus the actual name of the html file- that doesn’t really matter that much within Google scoring algorithm. So I think if you break it down by topic but make sure that the topic matches well with the keywords you expert your users to type in when they try to find your page then you should be in pretty good shape.

TZ comment: Wow! When you organize your website into directories based on topics, products, brands or themes . . . it simplifies the task of planning your specific content and keyword strategies at the same time.

While this is the first time any official from Google has ever stated directly that the Google scoring algorithm does not take into account “folder” versus “html” file relative to keyword placement, definitive statistical analysis has been performed by Search Engine Geek that reveals that sites with /folders/ in the URL tend to rank higher overall by a hefty margin. This is because if focuses on THEMES and TOPICS rather than becoming fixated on specific keywords.

There are several other indirect factors that tend to give well planned directory architecture the edge. Some of these factors may be indirect to the scoring algorithm. Whatever the case, you will simply be structured in a way that works both for your visitors and for the spiders.

4 Matt (paraphrased): You want to show the exact same parameters to users as you do to Google-bot. When you treat Google-bot differently than you treat a user, you start veering into the realm of “cloaking”. When you have long and nasty query strings (from shopping carts) it is best NOT to serve up html pages that are different to Google-bot in order to get indexed. The best way to fix long and “nasty” session ID based URL strings is to do a “MOD-REWRITE”.



- The Theme Zoom Staff