Google Releases Guide To SEO
By Sheila on Dec 6, 2008 in SEO Info
Google has raised the collective eyebrows of the SEO industry this week with the release of their free PDF download: the Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide.
The Guide offers a very thorough introduction to SEO, including advice on creating search engine friendly pages and optimized META tags, as well as excellent tips on general web site usability and best-practice design methodology.
As a tutor in SEO, I was very impressed with the level of detail included in the 22 page document and will be recommending it to my students as an additional resource for their studies.
Apart from the more obvious elements of search engine compatibility, the Guide includes coverage of usability topics often overlooked by SEO advocates such as:
- - Best practice for URL structuring
- - Site hierarchy and navigation flow
- - Using a custom 404 error page
- - Best practice for using anchor text
- - Link formatting and styling
- - Correct usage of robots.txt
- - Offline site promotion
- - Usage of web site analytics
The Guide began life as a list of best practices for teams within Google, but staff felt that external webmasters would benefit from the advice, which could improve their sites’ crawlability and indexing.
Google’s Search Quality Team plan on updating the guide at regular intervals to keep the technical advice current.
By Kalena Jordan in Kalena Jordan’s Blog
13 Comment(s)
By The Fitness Diva on Dec 6, 2008 | Reply
Ok, the release of the Google Bible? I will definitely be picking up a copy!
By Bob Caine on Dec 7, 2008 | Reply
Thank you for letting us know about the guide. I am printing it now. I don’t know about anyone else, but it seems like the more I learn about SEO the less I understand. I hope this helps.
By Carol on Dec 7, 2008 | Reply
I’ll be downloading it too. Thanks very much for telling us about it Kalena.
By The Hawg! on Dec 7, 2008 | Reply
Thanks for the tip! I’ll be getting my copy here in a minute so I can see what I’ve been doing wrong
By Robin Green on Dec 8, 2008 | Reply
I am still pretty new to the whole blogging world so this will come in real handy. Thanks so much.
By Kim on Dec 9, 2008 | Reply
I have downloaded and plan on giving it to a few of my clients (who I have also referred to your site). Cheers!
By Rhakateza on Dec 9, 2008 | Reply
Nice info
I’ll download it
By Ann Reilly on Dec 9, 2008 | Reply
cool…I need to improve my pr rank in google so I will hop on this! thnks!!
-Artzstuf
By Blazing Minds on Jan 6, 2009 | Reply
This is excellent and it’s free, what could be better I’m got my copy to have a good read later, thanks for the heads up on this..
By WebbieLady on Jan 12, 2009 | Reply
Is it the end of the long guessing game to please google? Well, a good move from them. At least it is the battle of hardworks now rather than a good guess as to how to optimize SE ranking…
By Adam on Mar 6, 2009 | Reply
Thanks for the info. I am going over there now.
By Web Site Design Dubai on Apr 18, 2009 | Reply
Hi, It is really a nice post, this is so informative I felt that it really helpful in my future. Thanks for the post. Keep post regularly.
By free online virtual worlds on Aug 14, 2009 | Reply
So there’s an official guide book now? Brilliant. When is this going to be a downloadable ebook?