I just noticed that the Google AdWords Keyword Tool is showing actual numbers instead of the usual progress bar style indicators for the approx search volume columns. This is a nice (more transparent) move for Google. I like this change.

Here are some pretty nifty Google search parameters to help you with your SEO efforts.

Adding &pws=0 turns off personalized search.

If you work with clients in a region other than your own, localization could come in handy.

gl – country &gl=US
gll – latitude,longitude
gr – region &gr=CA-AB &gr=GB-ENG &gr=US-UT
gcs – city (gr must be set) &gr=UT-US&gcs=Salt Lake City
gpc – postal code (gl must be “US”) &gl=US&gps=84109
gm – US metropolitan areas &gm=770

Restrict search results to a date range by using as_qdr.

d[number] – past number of days (i.e. &as_qdr=d10)
w[number] – past number of weeks
y[number] – past number of years

“&strip=1? on cache: queries strip media from the google cache view.
“&filter=0? on site: queries hide duplicate results.

Joost de Valk created a very nice pdf summarizing several of the google url parameters. You should also check out Cheat Sheet For Google Cheat Sheets for a few more links.

Google representative Matt Cutts advises using 301 redirects to establish a preferred www or non-www domain. URLs such as www.example.com, example.com, www.example.com/index.html, and example.com/home.asp all seem like they point to the same page, but all of them, in fact, could contain unique content. In order to cut down on a search engine cataloging said content more than one time, and therefore diluting search engine results pages (SERPs), you can use 301 redirects, a good internal link structure, xml sitemaps, and set your preferred domain in your Google Webmaster Central account. (more…)

Professional Search Engine Optimization with PHP: A Developer’s Guide to SEO by Jaimie Sirovich, Cristian Darie
Publisher: Wrox (April 16, 2007)
ISBN-10: 0470100923
ISBN-13: 978-0470100929

From url canonicalization to link bait, Professional Search Engine Optimization with PHP hits all the SEO basics a php programmer could need. Billed as a book written for the php developer or tech-savvy marketer, this book attempts to debunk a few myths and protect you from the black arts of black hat seo while offering up a healthy dose of code examples and tool suggestions. (more…)

Quite clever indeed…

The 10 Commandments of Search
An excerpt: “And all the webmasters perceived the thunderings of an update, and the changing of their PageRank, and the voice of the engine, and their rankings sinking; and when the people saw it, they trembled, and stood afar off.”

… from a great post by Skitzzo on the SEO Refugee Blog.

Ever wonder how to SEOify your WordPress install? Here’s the code I used in my WordPress theme to use custom fields for description and keywords meta tags. The down side to using this method is that you have to modify it for any new customized meta tags you want to use. I really only wanted to customize the description and keywords meta tags, so this worked out great for me. (more…)

Many studies have been done on the value of paid versus organic search engine optimization. In September 2006, WebSideStory reported paid search was only a slightly more efficient 3.4% conversion rate for e-commerce when compared to 3.1% for organic. iProspect reported that about 60% of all users click organic versus 40% for paid. OneUpWeb concluded that users are up to six times more likely to click on the first few organic results as they are to choose any of the paid search results. What do all these stats tell us? Simply where to start, not what to rely on.
(more…)