On Page SEO Tips, Tricks & Tests

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How many words will Google, Yahoo and Bing count as part of ALT Text on a page? Someone asked me this on the other day and I wondered if a little simple test might offer an answer. This sort of post is usually a decent way of picking up natural forum links wether it’s right or wrong….

The basic premise of course, is take an ALT tag, and put a lot of nonsense keywords in it, and see if the page will return for all (or any) the keywords. I confirmed with a similar test most search engines do count keywords in ALT text long ago.

Usefulness? I was thinking squarely from an accessibility point of view, not really spamming search engines. I think spamming ALT text can get you into trouble from what I have seen – probably depends on the site, and page, in question – or the intent.

Yes, you can use other alternatives to describe complex images, but how many words will google count in the ALT tag anyway? Is there a limit?

Here is the ALT text I tested with:

Google Results:

and

and interestingly

and

1. Google seemed to count the first 16 words in the ALT tag (well.. the Alt tag is an HTML Attribute) – of the image on this page – in this instance and interestingly in the snippet Google uses it does seem to completely cut of the rest of the ALT
2. EDIT – that’s 16 words of 7 + 8 characters each…. which might prove useful if you are using ALT tags to describe complex images.
3. That’s potentially plenty of space to describe images properly for accessibility purposes and seo effectiveness.

If I remember I will check and add data for Yahoo and Bing.

I like doing these little seo tests just to have a poke about and see, for effective and practical best practice purposes. I have this kind of data on a lot of seo factors – I will publish here later.

NOTE: On page SEO Tests are fun but you should always test for yourself on your own site anything I warble on about. This is just one example of a page I can observe and show ‘working a particular way’.

ALSO – This is a live running test – results might differ when Google caches the page, for instance. What I am testing here in fact – is this something can be tested?!

What do you think?

One time (at band camp) I manipulated first link priority to the home page of a site for the site’s main keyword – that is, instead of using ‘home‘ to link to my home page, I linked to the home page with “insert keyword“). Soon afterwords the site dropped in rankings for it’s main term from a pretty stable no6 to about page 3 and I couldn’t really work out exactly any other issue.

Of course, it’s impossible to isolate if making this change was the reason for the drop, but lets just say after that I thought twice about doing this sort of seo ‘trick‘ in future on established sites (even though some of my other sites seemed to rank no problem with this technique).

Confused as to the best practice?

So was I.

So I formulated a little experiment to see if anchor text links had any impact on an established home page (in as much a controlled manner as possible).

*****Setup – I EDITED THIS A BIT: Basically the search term (anchor text) I was looking for was “‘keyword1 (not present on the target page) + ‘keyword2 ‘” -(minus) ‘keyword3 also not on target page but a common word that would accompany keyword1 ‘” – I did this to get rid of a lot of noise in the serps for more relevant pages to the original keyword phrase. Also this keyword (keyword1) appeared in anchor text  on only ONE internal link on a static page which had no other links to the home page).*****

Result:

Well look at the graph below.

It did seem to have an impact.

However that massive drop for months is kind of worrying.

From Jan to July the site was nowhere for the phrase. Although it has just jumped 105 places back to no3 for the test term (which was a geographic location – not a made up word).

This change could be down to other reasons as I said – Google is always tweaking things. Perhaps this ranking drop would not have happened if the keyword was present on the target page.

It’s very posible linking to your home page with keyword rich anchor text links (and that link being the ONLY link to the home page on that page) can have some positive impact in your rankings, but it’s quite possible attempting this might damage your rankings too.

Trying to play with first link priority is for me, a bit too obvious and manipulative these days, so I don’t really bother much, unless with a brand new site, or if it looks natural, and even then not often, but these kind of results make me think twice about everything I do in seo.

I kind of stay away from the more manipulative onsite stuff these days.

I thought I’d share and let you decide on the potential risk or reward, or comment on…..

I’m seeing a LOT more of Google choosing itself what the best snippet title it can generate in search engine result pages, rather than rely on what you have provided in your page title element.

It seems to be based on what Google thinks is the best title based on the search query actually typed in.

I’ve seen this tested for months if not for over a year (usually to help repair malformed titles or pages with the same title ‘tag’ as some call it, for instance), but it seems to be very widespread now for well formed pages too.

Example today:

and

Dynamic snippet titles – they seem to key off of anchor text pointing to the page in question, or the page title itself, or using Headers (h1-h6) all based on what the searcher actually typed in.

I see a lot of folk asking in forums why their snippet title is different from their page title, and it’s probably that you just now can’t ever guarantee what title Google will pick to match to a phrase (unless you control the linking of course).

We SEO are used to very dynamic descriptions in the snippet – it looks as if Google is more confident at stretching that dynamism to the snippet title these days, and not just using this to ‘repair’ malformed titles and the like.

Perhaps EVEN more of a reason to mix up the anchor text pointing to a page, and creating unique page titles that are different from H1 headers etc….

Note – There are other reasons your page title is wrong in Google.

Recently I discussed a few observations about how Google treats certain elements of a page – a meta description test and keyword in the uri test. The test page itself has a few other points of interest:

Does Google Count The Acronym Tag?

As usual, I look at what I rank for, in this case the following search….

…and add a modifier and see if my page is returned. I use numbers rather than words sometimes – this time a number was in the acronym tag and not on the page.

Well you can see from the SERPS my page is gone.

It’s not lost on me that acronyms are meant to be for – er – words, not numbers. Maybe a relevent acronym tag is rewarded – though I have used proper acronyms in the past plenty of times – and removed – them – and replaced them, with no apparent benefit.

Any way from observing how the test page ranks – Google is ignoring it the acronym tag in this instance.

Other observations include a keyword (number) in the;

• Link Title Attribute – no benefit passed via the link either to another page, it seems
• ABBR (Abreviation Tags) – No
• Image File Name – No
• Wrapping words (or at least numbers) in SCRIPT – No, effectively ignored by Google

It’s clear many invisible elements of a page are completely ignored by Google (that would interest us seo).

Some invisible items are (still) aparently supported:

• NOFRAMES – Yes
• NOSCRIPT – Yes
• ALT Attribute – Yes

Recent shares:

• Does Google count keywords the meta description?
• Does Google count a keyword in the URL?
• Does Google ignore meta keyword tags?

Note – It’s worth pointing out Google seems to be indexing most the invisible elements apart from keywords in the  SCRIPT & some META, as you can see for yourself using the info: operator.

Using the same methodology as my previous observations, it’s clear (and unsurprising) Google and Bing 100% ignore keyword meta tags when ranking a page on a keyword search.

The test page in question disappears if I add the unique keyword in the meta keyord tags to the same query (if it is not on the page and only in the meta keywords tag).

So – it appears no benefit of having a keyword in the meta keywords tag on this level, for Google, if it is not on the page.

Bing seems to work in a similar fashion to Google, however Yahoo clearly apparently still uses the meta tag for ranking purposes as the following image shows…

Recent shares:

• Does Google count the meta description?
• Does Google count keywords in the URL?

Another simple observation for discussion about how Google seems to operate at a very granular level using the same sort of scenario as yesterdays post.

• Q: Does Google Count A Keyword In The URI When Ranking A Page?

The anwser to wether a keyword in the URI makes a difference to whether a page ranks or not for a query, is YES.

And it’s it may be IMPORTANT from what I can see with other observations I have made.

Perhaps very important from a relevance point of view – though that is NOT WHAT MOST SEO SEEM TO THINK OF THIS – I didn’t until I looked for myself.

Think of it though – that makes sense. It’s the name of a whole document. It might be more important than the keyword on the page in plain text – that is, it might be more RELEVANT to Google. See my next screen shot.

• Observation – the keyword in the URI outranks a page with the keyword in the text content. Of course, this is just one test page, and positions can change with time due to any number of things. Why it’s important is another matter. For instance, does Google count this as a link – it IS cited on another document, albeit not in the anchor text of that link? Or is it just the keyword use itself?

Anyways – placing keywords in your URI is important as well all know, but the keywords in the URI – ie the filename of the document – don’t need to be on the page at all.

Does Yahoo count the keyword in the URI? Apparently so….

And so does Bing by the look of it……

Takeaways

• Google, Yahoo & Bing SEEMS to consistently rank a page in a search for a keyword that is only present in the file name (URL) and not present on the page itself or anywhere else, and that’s what I am seeing in a lot of places.

I’ve a few more I will publish. The aim of this is geek fun – it’s a search to find out how to make a page AS RELEVANT AS POSSIBLE so Google will rank it well, on a very basic level.

I already know how to make a page relevant, and I don’t sweat the small stuff. But I always like to keep an eye open for little hints like this observation MAY illustrate – because it is not JUST ALL ABOUT INCOMING BACKLINKS for a search engine demanding relevance.

Don’t just take my word for this or the recent meta description observation. See if this is true with your pages.

Of course – you don’t NEED to have a keyword in the URI. But search engines will count them if you do. Perhaps search engines place more emphasis on other regions of a page if keywords are not used in a URI. Who knows….?

A bit of of seo testing

A lot of people use gibberish words in tests so I don’t. I use unique numbers which only appear in hidden elements – and I have a lot of pages all over the place. I am only interested in what I can see and what actually helps a page rank in SERPS -

• Q: Does Google, Yahoo or Bing use the meta description as an aid to rank a page?

Does Google Use The Meta Description When Ranking A Page?

My test page comes up No1 for the keyword search. THE QUERY search result is here. It’s no1 – note that.

I have a unique number in the meta description which is not on the page.

If I search for – “THE NUMBER” + “THE QUERY” I get no results – Google says there is no single page in it’s index with those 2 terms on the page, even though there is. Query here.

These tests have been live for months and at least in this qualitative test, it certainly appears as if:

• Google ignores the meta description when ranking the page for the query - if keywords are only in the meta description and not on the page, the page gets NO Benefit in a real life search.

Google knows it’s there – you can check that using the info: operator with the same “THE NUMBER” + “THE QUERY” search and it’s clearly visible in the SERPS when the page IS retured.

BUT THIS ISN”T HELPING A TARGET PAGE RANK – AND THIS IS ALL I AM INTERESTED IN.

Does Yahoo Use The Meta Description When Ranking A Page?

Yahoo DOES use the Meta Description when ranking a page it seems….

Does Bing utilise the meta description in this way? It does not return the page. Bing seems to work the same as Google – effectively ignoring the meta description tag according to this test.

Takeaways

• Google is ignoring the meta description when the keyword is not also present on the page – which kinds of suggests Google ignores the meta description WHEN RETURNING A BASIC SEARCH RESULT TO A USER.
• Google still reads the meta description and uses it in snippets if you are using certain operators – if you want the meta description to appear as the snippet, place your keyword in it (and that keyword needs to be on the page, too).
• Yahoo does seem to still use the meta description when returning a page in this manner
• Bing is similar to Google (there’s a surprise – sarcasm) – it does not apparently use keywords in the meta description that are not on the page

It also might mean Google wants us to think it is ignoring the meta description totally – certainly, this is a good way to nulify the unique word in the meta description test, and any seo tester testing on a granular level will tell you, Google likes to nulify or muddy these kind of tests.

Which kinds of makes it hard to test things on a granular level these days.

Don’t trust me though. Test yourself, on the site you want to rank. You just need to ensure the keyword is unique to the page, and not in links or mentioned anywhere else on the site. Which is kind of hard.

Questions This Test May Not Answer?

Does Google reward a VERY RELEVANT meta description? Again, very hard to tell for sure (I’m running tests on this too).

Run your own tests and see what you can cup with, but for me, I still just try and make good pages that are as relevant to the phrase I am targeting – and IMO, you can probably always make a page more relevant. Sometimes I include a meta description sometimes I don’t. Usually, I write it for humans first, then engines.

I just thought it was worth sharing for discussion as I seem to use a slightly different method of determining things to some of my seo buddies with tests here and here.

Do add any comments or let me know if you can think of testing – I use that word loosely -  things a bit more accurately.

I’ll share some more test results for discussion later, too.

Home Page Title Is Wrong In Google Search Results?

I often get asked “why is my page title not showing the correct title keywords in Google (and in sometimes Yahoo) search results pages?”

I thought I would list some of the more obvious reasons and just point those interested here:

Reasons Google Shows Wrong Page Title In SERPS & How To Fix

• If you’re totally new to this, Google will look in your page <title></title> tags in the HEAD for your page title information, to display as the link to your page in search results (SERPS)
• If you’ve made changes recently to optimise your page title for search engines, it might very well be just that Google doesn’t know yet, because it’s not visited your page since you made the change. So give it time. Check the Google CACHE link under your listing in search engines to see which page Google is “supposedly” using for your page (it’s usually accurate).
• If this is clearly not the case, it might be because it is using Open Directory Project (ODP) data (the DMOZ directory) to replace your title with your directory listing data – that is, it’s using the link on that directory to replace your title because it thinks its more relevant to a specific query. If this is a possibility, add <meta name=”robots” content=”noodp” /> and <meta name=”robots” content=”noydir” /> – for the same issue in Yahoo – to your home page and once Google visits the page again, the problem should be resolved See – NOODP & also NOYDIR.
• If you are not in DMOZ or the Yahoo directory, it may well be your title element My Titleis malformed in someway – I’ve shown before how search engines can choose to use a Header ‘tag’ as a Page title, or ignore the page title completely if you’re a spammer in the making – so ensure your Page Title is properly marked up and starts with and ends with and is in the HEAD of your document – and there is only one :p
• Another reason is you may be confusing Google in some way from getting to the correct page title, and/or from displaying it in results, using directives in your meta tags or Robots.txt. When Google knows about the page because other pages it CAN read link to your page with descriptive keywords, it might very well use these links on third party pages to determine what that page title should be if it decides to include the URI in it’s listings, and you CERTAINLY don’t want that. For questions about Robots.txt I go to Sebastian. No doubt he’ll tell me if I have worded that correctly.
• In 2011, Google uses many signals to help create a search snippet title these days, and will use elements or attributes of your page, or the information in links to your page, to create a snippet title, based on what a searcher typed in.

Obviously having an intelligent, well formed page title, that is relevant to the page, and not duplicated on other pages of your site, is just about the most important single thing you can do to ‘seo’ a page on your site.

You can still it seems fit a maximum of 70 characters in it as the test pages below seem to confirm…

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=site%3Awww.hobo-web.co.uk%2Fhowmanycharacters%2F

(and 157 characters seems to max out the meta description in one or two keyword searches too in that example. That little test also shows you what happens if Google ignores your page title too).

PS – This is another part of my social media & syndication / status update test….using Google Docs to publish to my WordPress blog.

Keyword stuffing is simply the process of repeating the same keyword or keyphrases over and over in a page. Keyword stuffing is bad. Keyword stuffing is a signpost of a very low quality spam site. Keyword stuffing is something Google clearly recommends you avoid:

Keyword stuffing” refers to the practice of loading a webpage with keywords in an attempt to manipulate a site’s ranking in Google’s search results.

Keyword stuffing makes your text often unreadable. Keyword stuffing often (really often) gets a page booted out of Google but it depends on the intent and the trust and authority of a site – and I’d think it would be diferent rules for different verticals (perhaps). Keyword stuffing is sloppy seo. Keyword stuffing is a bastian of useless seo companies.

Keyword stuffing might get a page to rank for a while, but will it convert any customers to leads and sales? Keyword stuffing is obviously not a tactic you want to employ in search of long term rankings. Keyword stuffing makes you look dyslexic (no problem for me) or stupid (!).

Keyword stuffing can be a bit of an art though. There’s clearly a tipping point with keyword stuffing tactics, very difficult to identify. Just because someone else is keyword stuffing do not automatically think you will get a way with it – keyword stuffing page penalties really does depend on the site you do it on but penalties are common.

I wonder if this post can rank for keyword stuffing or if i have overdone it with my keyword stufing….. it was really just a bit of keyword stuffing fun before I turn in….perhaps I’ve overdone my keyword density :p

Don’t keyword stuff – there’s better ways of ranking in Google without resorting to keyword stuffing…. but can you see the irony if this page picks up links and ranks for keyword stuffing?

I showed recently Google will use the next available Header, be it a H1, H2, H3, H4, H5 and H6 if your page title element is screwed.

The snippet below shows Google using a H6 header as the page title.

Yahoo will actually ignore the Header tags on the same page and elect to use the anchor text of incoming links

MSN / Live seems to just go for it, and index the title as much as possible (@ 75 characters?)

I like finding Google’s limits. I ran a quick test to see if Google will use any Header Tag as a page title if for some reason it does not like the page title element you give it (as I thought it might).

The result was if the title element is malformed, Google will use any available Header, be it a H1, H2, H3 H4 H5 or H6 as the page title.

The snippet below shows Google using a H6 as the page title. Some other interesting observations to follow but for now check out how Yahoo & MSN handle a malformed title.

Google Using Headers as Page Title in SERP Snippet

New to HTML? Check out SEO & H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6.

Google SEO – Matt Cutts from Google shares tips on the new rel=”canonical” meta tag that the 3 top search engines now support.

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Google, Yahoo!, and Microsoft have all agreed to work together in a “joint effort to help reduce duplicate content for larger, more complex sites, and the result is the new Canonical Tag”.

Example Canonical Tag From Google Webmaster Central blog:

<link rel="canonical" href="http://www.example.com/product.php?item=swedish-fish" />

You can put this link tag in the head section of the duplicate content urls, if you think you need it.

Google recently gave more assistance to webmasters, if you can call it that, concerning url rewriting, or changing dynamic variable filled URL to more search engine friendly, more human readable static looking URLS (OK, URI).

They actually could be interpreted as recommending not to rewrite a website urls, because there is a chance you could screw things up.

They busted some ‘myths’ too;

1. Myth: “Dynamic URLs cannot be crawled.” (knew that)
2. Myth: “Dynamic URLs are okay if you use fewer than three parameters.” (thought that)

I’ve mentioned before having a keyword in a url on its own has a minuscule, if any, effect on the ranking of a page but may have some benefits when people use the url to link to the site (I think it does). Having a keyword in the url may be a signal of some sort of relevence for an engine in 2010 – see this test – does Google count keywords in the URL?

I do see what Google is doing – they are telling people ‘Google can read dynamic urls’ – that’s what I will take from the post…. but only the most ignorant seo doesn’t know that already.

It’s not exactly in line with what the W3C recommends, from what I can determine.

In Cool URIs Don’t Change, they determined a SEF url was more user friendly, now and in the long term, for humans. Some may say W3C advice is outdated, or trite, but I still try and follow it where I can. I still believe the best method for constructing urls is short and to the point – human readable preferably. If you go through a site CMS change, you can rewrite to keep old urls.

Of course, sometimes its hard to follow even the best advice, but it’s always worth remembering and trying in the end to achieve usability, accessibility and visibility.

I would still recommend rewriting urls, despite this post from the Google Webmaster Team. Then again, this advice is more usability orientated than a search engine optimisation benefit.

…and interestingly, the Google Webmaster Blog seems to produce SEF Urls LOL and it’s worth pointing out – Google is not the only search engine (I did say that didn’t I)