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Weekly Search Engine Facts 7 May 2002

You might think that the age of a Web site would be a good additional factor for search engines to rank Web sites. Older Web sites have proven to be successful just because they're still around.

It seems to be true. Our study results show that most of the top 10 Web pages are between 5 and 8 years old. 53,7% of the #1 Web pages on Google and 41,1% of the #1 Web pages on AltaVista are 5-8 years old.

Of course, it's possible that other factors might play important roles, for example older Web sites are more likely to have more content and more links pointing to their Web site.

If you have a new Web site, you know that it's hard to obtain a good search engine ranking. Only 3,46% of the #1 Web pages on Google are six months old or younger.

Source: Search Engine Ranking Studies Q2/2002

We conducted the most comprehensive search engine ranking studies examining 103,260 top 10 Web pages on 6 search engines. The results cover 140 topics, for example link popularity, Meta tags, inbound/outbound links, keyword density, document types.

The reports have 140 color diagrams on 306 pages and are available as PDF documents. They help you to understand what it takes to get a good ranking on search engines.

http://www.axandra.com/search-engine-studies/index.htm

Reason #1: You are using frames.

Many search engines have problems with frames. They often only index the frameset page and not the individual frames that contain the actual content. Unfortunately, the frameset page usually doesn't have META tags, title and enough content (text) to obtain a listing on a search engine.

The best solution to this problem would be to avoid frames. Usability guru Jakob Nielsen counts frames as one of the top ten mistakes in Web design:

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9612.html

If you really must use frames, consider the following points:

1. Add a description of your Web site in the <noframes> area so that search engines can index that text. There you should also add a link to the homepage.

2. When a search engine indexes a frame page outside of the frameset, the visitor can be left stranded and unable to link into your site. So your individual frame pages should always contain a link back into your site.

3. Add some JavaScript to force frame pages into the frameset. This prevents visitors from inadvertently accessing an orphaned Web page. You can use the following JavaScript snippet:

---
if (top.location.href == self.location) {
top.location.href = "URL of your frame file";
}
----

Webreference.com offers a very good introduction to frames:

http://webreference.com/dev/frames/

http://www.CheckYourLinkPopularity.com


* ARELIS - Axandra's Reciprocal Links Solution

ARELIS is the first software program that provides a serious, spam-free reciprocal links solution for professional webmasters. Reciprocal links can get you a lot of targeted traffic and they improve the link popularity of your Web site in the search engines. Free download:

http://www.Axandra.com/download.htm

CoolToolAwards.com says about ARELIS: "It may be just what you are looking for. You can most likely uncover hundreds of non-competitive Web sites who will be happy to cross-link to you."

* Did you know?

Our affiliate program now pays you 35% for every sale of our products:

http://www.Axandra.com/affiliates.htm


* Marketing Web sites we recommend

http://www.axandra.com/recommended-sites/index.htm

Please recommend this issue to anyone you know who is interested in search engine facts. It's a good way to stay in touch with your clients, too.

If you're receiving this issue as a forward, and would like to get your own free subscription, visit

http://www.Axandra.com/subscribe.htm


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