If you are aiming to increase your awareness on SEO then the following set of questions and answers are sure to add to your knowledge.

What is SEO?

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. Search engine optimization is simply the practice of making your website or blog more accessible to both search engines and search engine users; in other words, you're making it easier for them to find you.

How does my site get listed on Google?

Sites are indexed by Google and included automatically. The Google spider crawls the web to find sites for inclusion. Paid inclusion of sites is not available in Google, however, it offers advertising space adjacent to the main results, known as Sponsored Listings. Alternatively one can improve and optimize the elements in your site which Google uses to grade websites like Page Rank, Inbound links, Link popularity etc.

Though I am listed in Yahoo and MSN but I'm nowhere in Google SERPS. Why?

Google usually penalizes or bans those sites that use SEO Spam techniques to get higher ranks in the search results by putting those sites into Sandbox. But this phenomenon is only for a short duration of time. You can overcome it with consistent and continuous optimization of web pages. (For more details click Sandbox effect)

Is link building required for SEO?

Yes! Link building is the best and most acceptable method to optimize a website. Getting quality links help in increasing the page rank of the website. Google and all major search engines accord high priority and importance to link popularity as one of the primary criteria for ranking websites.

Are different anchor texts required for different text links?

Yes! Different anchor texts give a natural impression of your link to the search engines, and they don't appear as links which have been created using spam technique.

What are meta tags and do I need them?

Meta tags are items written in HTML code that helps in listing of the websites in search engines. They also play a very significant role in the ranking of your website in search engines. They provide the title, description, and keywords of each webpage of your website which helps the site in securing a good position in search engines result pages.

How many times do I need to submit my website to the Search Engines?

Websites are required to be submitted once. Once your site is indexed by a particular search engine resubmission is not necessary as it will not help you in any way. Resubmission is required only if site is edited like addition of new web pages, addition or modification in the existing pages or alteration of the meta tags of any page within your website.

Should you hire a search engine optimization company?

The decision to hire an SEO is entirely yours. Make sure to research the potential advantages as well as the damage that an irresponsible SEO can do to your site. However many SEOs like AuroIN provide useful services for website owners, which include:

• Search Engine Optimization Services
• Keyword research
• Internet Marketing Services
• Reviewing and providing recommendations on your site structure.
• Content development and Content Writing
• Website development services

What are spiders, robots, and crawlers?

A spider, robot, or crawler is actually just a program that follows, or "crawls", links throughout the Internet, grabbing content from sites and adding it to search engine indexes.

Spiders are programmed to follow links from one page to another and from one site to another. That is the primary reason why links to your site are so important. The more times search engine spiders find links to your site, the more times they will stop by and visit. Google especially relies on its' spiders to create their vast index of listings.

What is search friendly website design?

Search friendly website design means, to design a site that is easy for the search engines to index and read.
Search engines can't read or index some of the following:

• Flash animation
• Java Scripts
• PHP or data base driven content, and have a hard time properly indexing these pages.
• Poison words and stop words, some words may cause your site to be penalized for inappropriate content.
• Content development and Content Writing
• Many engines and directories hate Automated Submissions; many consider them SPAM and may ban your domain for their use.

If your site is not search friendly and you are not getting the traffic you want, let the AuroIN optimization experts help redesign your site to offer the best chance for top positions.

How does my site get listed on Google?

Sites are indexed by Google and included automatically. The Google spider crawls the web to find sites for inclusion. Paid inclusion of sites is not available in Google; however, it offers advertising space adjacent to the main results, known as Sponsored Listings. Alternatively one can improve and optimize the elements in your site which Google uses to grade websites like Page Rank, Inbound links, Link popularity etc.

Though I am listed in Yahoo and MSN, I'm nowhere in Google SERPS. Why?

Google usually penalizes or bans those sites that use SEO Spam techniques to get higher ranks in the search results by putting those sites into Sandbox.. You can overcome the Sandbox effect with continuous and consistent optimization of web pages.

Is link building required for SEO?

Yes! Link building is the best and most acceptable method to optimize a website. Getting quality links help in increasing the page rank of the website. Google and all major search engines grant high priority and importance to link popularity- as one of the primary criteria for ranking websites.

Which of the two is better: "one-way" links or "reciprocal links"?

One way links provide you better and faster results than reciprocal links but it may cost you some money. Whereas reciprocal linking is free but time consuming. Worthless reciprocal links can even downgrade your page rank.

What is URL canonicalization?

For most websites, the www and non-www versions both resolve to the same content but can be browsed independently, especially if using internal links without the full domain name.

Similarly it's often possible to view both yoursite.com/ and yoursite.com/index.html

The following urls could contain different content, but in most cases it is the same:

www.yoursite.com/
yoursite.com/
www.yoursite.com/index.html
yoursite.com/index.html
yoursite.com/index.php

This gives rise to URL canonicalization, whereby Google has to decide which url is the best represented from the possible options. Usually this would see the page with the most back links (internal and external) displayed in the search results, and so for most webmasters the problems remain hidden.

The disadvantage of canonical url problems is that the link love is split between several possible options and therefore does not maximize the full ranking potential of the page.

What is ModRewrite and when should I use it?

Mod_Rewrite is a set of functions built into htaccess, an Apache module which allows all sorts of nifty tricks with URL's, Error Pages, etc.

Mod_Rewrite is used mostly for changing dynamic links, such as

http://www.example.com/shop.php?cat=4&id=123

into search engine friendly static URL's, such as:

http://www.example.com/shop/4/123.html

While the dynamic link won't get indexed easily, and likely not at all without external sites linking directly to that URL, the static link will get indexed with simple internal linking.While the dynamic link won't get indexed easily, and likely not at all without external sites linking directly to that URL, the static link will get indexed with simple internal linking.

What is a “good navigation structure?”

Ex: Home-->Sublevel1-->Sublevel2

The above type of navigation allows the Search Engines to find all pages in the most efficient and thorough way. It also aids "Deep Crawls" which are crucial to dynamic sites with more than 10,000 pages.

The second part of navigation is the "site map". This is a page which contains a link to every one of your pages. To be fully optimized, the links should have a descriptive anchor text to further help the page you are linking to. In addition your site map should always be within one click of the index page as this will help the Search Engines find it quickly.

The major type of navigation to avoid or to at least compensate for is Javascript pull-down menus as Search Engine bots will not follow these.

What is Google Analytics?

Google Analytics is a free web-stats solution which not only reports all the regular site stats, but also integrates directly with Google AdWords giving webmasters an insight into the ROI of their pay-per-click ads. Google will have access to your real web stats and these stats will be far more accurate than those provided by Alexa. According to Google, "Google Analytics tells you everything you want to know about how your visitors found you and how they interact with your site."