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PageRank & SEO

Core concepts

  • Google's main algorithm - PageRank
    • the key concept is that Google ranks your website on search result on how much other sites refer to it. The more reliable the page refers to your site the better of it will rank in the site.
  • Crawler versus Indexing
    • Crawler - is just a Googlebot that goes around crawling site and storing URLs in its message queue
    • Index - is the actual act of Google storing that pages in their index repository

Tools to use​

  • Google search site:<yoursite.com> and intitle:<anytitle>
    • This will enable you to see how much google bot has crawled or has visibility of your sites pages
  • Screaming Frog - perform a manual crawl on your own
  • Robots.txt
    • NOTE: robots.txt URLs are case-sensitivenb
  • robots.txt is a file that tells Googlebot which pages or sections of your site to crawl and which ones to exclude
    • it's important to properly configure your robots.txt file to avoid blocking important pages or sections from being crawled and indexed by Google

Best practices

  • Focus on building high-quality, relevant content that naturally attracts backlinks from other sites
    • avoid black hat SEO tactics like buying links, keyword stuffing, or cloaking, as these can result in penalties or even a complete ban from Google
  • Use descriptive and relevant title tags and meta descriptions for each page on your site
    • this helps both search engines and users understand the content of the page
  • Optimize your site's load speed and mobile responsiveness
    • faster-loading sites with a good mobile experience tend to rank higher in search results
  • Make use of header tags (H1, H2, H3) to structure your content and help search engines understand the hierarchy of information on the page

Challenges and considerations

  • SEO is an ongoing process that requires regular updates and maintenance to stay relevant and effective
    • search algorithms change frequently, so what works today may not work tomorrow
  • Balancing user experience with SEO optimization can be challenging - it's important to create content that satisfies both users and search engines
    • overly aggressive optimization tactics can result in a poor user experience, driving users away from your site
  • International SEO can be complex, requiring specific strategies for targeting different languages and regions
    • this may involve creating separate subdomains or using hreflang tags to indicate language variations of the same page