SEO: Search Engine Optimization Bible

blogs. Anchor text is well suited to blogs that change daily or weekly. This is fresh content (which

is also a plus for improving your search engine rankings). It gives you an opportunity to change

your anchor text regularly. Search engine crawlers get bored, too, and if you can provide them with

dynamic content that contains relevant anchor text, those crawlers will look on you with favor.

One anchor-text tactic to avoid is Google bombing (or link bombing).Google bombing

refers to the methods used by black-hat SEOs to artificially inflate their web-site ranking

by connecting an unrelated keyword to a specific web site. For Google bombing to work, more than

one web-site designer must be willing to participate in a link exchange that will then grow exponen-

tially because of the “apparent” popularity of the site.

For example, if in September 2006 a user searched for the phrase “miserable failure,” that user was

taken to the George W. Bush web site. A group of web-site designers got together and all of them used

the anchor text “miserable failure” to link to Bush’s web site, pushing far more traffic to the site than

would otherwise have gone there.

Usually, Google bombing is politically related, though it is not exclusively political. And Google bombs

aren’t limited to the Google search engine. Any search engine can be affected by Google bombing,

which is also sometimes called link bombing.

Header tag content

Another attribute that should be included in web-site design is the header tag.Header tags are the

attributes that set up the different levels of headings and subheadings on your web site. There can

be as many as six different levels of headings, though most web sites use only about four.

The debate about the value of header tags in SEO is a long-standing one. Some feel that header tags

have zero value for impressing search engines about the importance of text on a page, whereas others

feel that header tags are absolute necessities if you plan to put emphasis on certain keywords in the

headings and subheadings of your web site.

The truth probably falls somewhere in between the two points of view. Looking at header tags from

a strictly design point of view, you should absolutely include them in your site. Headers tell users

what the topic of a page is and what the segments of body text are about. They also give readers an

idea of what they should be taking away from the content they’re reading. For example, if you have

a web site that contains an article outlining all the medical reasons readers should purchase a new

mattress, your level-one header would likely be the title of the article. The level-two headers indicate

the main subheadings within the article, and the level-three headers indicate the sub-subheadings. It

might look something like this:

Losing Sleep Over Poor Sleep Habits?

Your Mattress Could Keep You Awake

Too Firm?

Too Soft?

Choosing the Right Mattress

CAUTION CAUTION

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Part II SEO Strategies

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