Even though I retired in early 2006 I still get the emails from so called SEO expert websites. Some of the info is definately recycled stuff I read in 2003 - 2006. Which lets me believe not a lot has changed ? LOL

So are certain search engines no longer top notch and to be listed on them used to be it.

Is it now just Google, yahoo, Msn and ask? what happened to the free directory which was such a pain to get on to and even a bigger pain to become a member of. Is that place dead or do just the ultra geeks hang out on there these days?

One of my websites was a 5/10 for many years, in the last month or so it has dropped to a 4/10 on google rankings.

What are the best tools and sites to be listed for UK customers?

Search engines change there formals every so often but don't tell us. ( that there trick)

I have found link exchanging to work most. Along with <strong> and <em>

I hope that sorta answers your question.

Simon

Who are these search engines Yahoo, Msn and Ask??? I only know of Google the almighty.


-Jasontor

LOL Jasontor. I'm not really an SEO guy, but from what I know, don't a lot of the search engines (especially the smaller ones) grab their results from Google and Yahoo and such?
And as far as techniques go, I think some of the best advice is to use good clean code (em, title tag, bold - stuff like that), and get some inbound links to your site. Be careful of the latter, though. Don't join link farms or anything like that. From what I've learned, some of the best ways to get those links are through forum signatures, articles that you write with the credit linked back to your site, and of course the old fashioned way of contacting website owners and simply asking. Kinda like the link exchange section on this site.

People still use them, and its worth being top for all of them!!

Simon

Google made a correction about a month ago so you are not alone. They obviously changed what they value.

dmoz is what I think you were talking about. It's still hard to get into, and I do think Google was getting sites from it. But now google says in their webmasters guide that they will find us no matter what now.

Google is the God of SE's. Make your mind up to focus on that SE and you'll do fine in the others.

Yes, as I posted in another thread: I find it that if you get ranked well in Google, the others tend to follow.

I certainly set Google as my benchmark SE for all my sites as in my past experience, the rest just tend to come.

I'm very lazy and mainly target Google because as it has been said before Yahoo, Ask etc. seem to just follow.

Hey guys,

Google is the big boy. The Search Engine market share goes something like this...

Google: 60%
Yahoo: 23%
MSN: 10%
TimeWarner & ASK: 4.5%

If you're interested you can read more about it. I believe they have the rankings for other countries on there as well.
U.S. Search Engine Rankings, December 2007

Rich

Exactly my point!

-Jasontor

Google is most difficult to optimize for.

There is a reason why Google is a verb. It has by far the biggest share of the search market. I would optimize for Google first. Other search engines should be considered but nail Google first.

don't forget about Digg.com, Technorati.com, Redd.it, StubleUpon, del.icio.us etc.
Those are the hot sites at the moment. Get a link in there and hope people like it..

Unless you are writing articles or tutorials that may generate some user interest you will largely be wasting your time by bookmarking your portfolio on this site.

yeah.. it's not for portfolio's unless you have a really stunning one

Video websites like youtube are very useful as it gives better search results for any keyword