Best On Page SEO Factors

[kgun]

Yes, since the devil is in the details it may have a direct effect on one or more SE Bots.

Obviously it can have an indirect effect through usability. More people find the page / site valuable since it is better in some browsers and for that reason link to it.

As you know I collect links to my linkfarm, where usability is a very important factor.

[crankydave]

I think kgun touched on an important point. That is, whether or not an increase of ranking fo example, was due to the direct affect of performing a task or as an indirect result of what performing that task corrected or accomplished.

For instance, if validating the markup for a particular page corrected a broken link and thus resulted in higher rankings for that page, then the higher rankings would be due to correcting the link and not the validation itself.

Dave

[williamc]

Originally Posted by janeth

Has anyone proven that the length of time a visitor stays on your site affects your ranking?

The better question would be: How the heck is a search engine going to know how long anyone is on my pages. It is impossible.
There is just no possible way currently that time spent on a page can be counted or matter in any way, shape, or form.

[kgun]

May be a bad (hacker) bot that goes around everything could?

Is there a bad SE bot out there that base the SERP's on time spent on a page / site as a SERP ranking factor?

I have seen BOTS stay nearly permanently on some forums.

But does any (bad or not) company have the resources to supply the required number of Bots?

This shoud be of theoretical and no practical value in 2007.

[williamc]

Rumblepup: You know I like you and generally even agree with you on many things, but the first post that started this topic stated "was hoping to find out what on page SEO factors people here feel are most important. Below is a list of the factors I thought of."

That post does not read like "Here is a list of things a general webpage should have", but a list of "factors" she thought were important in on-page SEO.

That said, the factors below from her list are all I, and most people here I would think, would consider having anything to do with on-page SEO:

Title Attribute (I am assuming here that she means title element not attribute)
Meta Description (as far as I know from all testing, only yahoo uses this and only as a small part of ranking considerations)
H1 Tag
Navigation (combined the various types she mentioned)
CSS For Page Layout (some will say this matters, I do not, but i will include it as some think so)
Page Structure (if she means keyword placement/positioning, then yes, if she means visual structure, no)
Internal Linking
Alt Attributes for Images (only when the image is linked, or optimizing for image search)
Title Tags for Text Links (no value anymore, used to work for keyword stuffing)
Sitemap HTML
Sitemap XML

The rest of that long list has no SEO value in the least, IMO.

Valid HTML? Let me ask you this: In many cases having no meta description tag and allowing the engines to only use a snippet they create from actual page text gives a searcher a better idea it is what he wants and thus brings more clicks from engines.

However, having no meta description tag breaks validity tests, does it not?

[weslinda]

She...is a he...but thanks for the love anyway.

[williamc]

Originally Posted by weslinda

She...is a he...but thanks for the love anyway.

Gah, my bad, I read the linda part and goofed

I will point out tho that this snippet from your article on meta descriptions is misleading as it can be:

While many people in the web design and search optimization world have misused this tag, it can be a great tool to improve a pages ranking in the search engines

Meta description, in all tests to date, has shown not to help in rankings at all in the three major engines, except, minutely, in Yahoo. That in my opinion should be clarified in the article.

[weslinda]

Well, I wanted to send out an update. Our first month was filled with lovely traffic, despite the holidays and summer activities. Below is our baseline for these results.



Not bad, a few thousand visitors and nearly 10,000 page views. Not a bad start. Nearly 80% of our traffic was search engine based.

[janeth]

I'm not trying to be ugly but the traffic to the site does not prove anything when it comes to the points you made.

I can launch a brand new site today and send more traffic to the site in the first week then what you are showing for the month. But that want prove that most of the factors you are pointing out do not work.

[weslinda]

Janeth,

I'm not trying to prove anything with this. I'm using those numbers as a baseline for all to measure against in six months. I'm happy you can launch a site with that much traffic in the first month.

Of course, this is a very nitch web site with a focus on one state, and one event in peoples lives. I don't expect it to get the traffic of a new web site focused on the nintendo wii. Perspective here. Again, we're only showing this as a baseline. And then in 6 months we can measure the success of the changes.

Again, what we're looking at is to see what the changes discussed in the original post will do for a web site and it's traffic. Every effort we are making has to do with changes to the site, and content added on site.

[crankydave]

Originally Posted by weslinda

Janeth,

I'm not trying to prove anything with this. I'm using those numbers as a baseline for all to measure against in six months. I'm happy you can launch a site with that much traffic in the first month.

Of course, this is a very nitch web site with a focus on one state, and one event in peoples lives. I don't expect it to get the traffic of a new web site focused on the nintendo wii. Perspective here. Again, we're only showing this as a baseline. And then in 6 months we can measure the success of the changes.

Again, what we're looking at is to see what the changes discussed in the original post will do for a web site and it's traffic. Every effort we are making has to do with changes to the site, and content added on site.

Thank you for the update.

The problem I have is that I'm not sure what is trying to be demonstrated in relation to the points you made in the original post.

Since none of the factors are/were isolated, there's no way of knowing which ones, individually or in a small combination, had any affect at all.

There's no way of knowing whether or not the same results could be achieved by utilizing only 1 or 2 of the factors.

There's also no way of knowing whether or not one or more of the factors actually surpressed the affect of the others. Not at all suggesting that they may have. It just can't be known.

Ultimately, what do you hope or anticipate this test is going to demonstrate as it relates to your original post?

Dave

[weslinda]

Dave,

The original post was in regards to 25 best on page practices. Things that will ultimately help a web site. We're not trying to get down to each item with this. We're trying to show that with these improvements, a web site will rank better. Without exponential work on linkbuilding or any other activity.

[crankydave]

Originally Posted by weslinda

Dave,

The original post was in regards to 25 best on page practices. Things that will ultimately help a web site. We're not trying to get down to each item with this. We're trying to show that with these improvements, a web site will rank better. Without exponential work on linkbuilding or any other activity.

This is precisely the problem I have.

Because of the way the test was structured, there's no way to know which of the factors had any effect, positive or negative.

There's no way to know if someone were to employ only a few or some of the 25 SEO practices you listed, that they would have better results. What would that say about the SEO practices that were not employed?

There's no way to know if 10 of the factors had a positive effect and the remaining 15 had either no effect or a negative effect.

Dave

[seolee]

I personally think the 25 or so factors are very useful. You certainly need quality links, but those factors are an important part of the entire site and the marketing plan.

Just those factors, or just links is great, but having BOTH links and those list of ideals is a fantastic way to get your site hitting your targets.

Internet Marketing Services UK

[weslinda]

SEOLEE, thank you very much. I haven't done much with more updates for folks, people have seemed to lose interest in the test and there are certainly some limitations on what we can draw from the results.

It was my original goal with the list to simply set a list of core factors your web site should start with, and certainly this was not a list that is a standalone guide to success. As we all know, a good site needs to fire on all cylinders and this is simply one in my opinion. But a good foundation is a great way to start at the front of the curve.