[sdiy] why does google suck SO bad for finding my parts? Yahoo is on it!

[David Anderson]

Hi Bob,

I'll have to admit that I haven't followed this thread too closely. A 
few things:

- Google ranks your page higher based on its 'reputation'. One measure 
is inbound links (pages on sites other that yours pointing to your site)

- Inbound links with context (ie the phrase "ms-20 replacement key" as 
link text) register better than "click here"

- It's rumored that there is a 'Google sandbox' that new pages/sites go 
into, pushing the position far, far down in the search results. I don't 
recall off-hand how long a site stays in the sandbox but it's not a 
trivial amount, depending on your perspective

- Google does pay attention to meta tags. You can use the meta 
description tag to augment how Google shows your in search results

- <title> is not a meta tag and is very important to Google

- filenames that contain keywords that appear in the content of the page 
are favored by Google. ms-20-replacement-keys.htm is preferred over 
keys.htm (or whatever).

There are a number of strategies for search engine optimization. As I 
saw you mention earlier, it can be an overwhelming and a full-time project.

David