Three SEO questions are answered in this Q&A article:

1. Do search engines ignore stop words in domain names?
2. I created a duplicate website to target my services to a different state. My intention is not to dupe Google but I don’t know what else to do. How would you approach this?
3. What can I do to increase the number of backlinks I am getting from articles?

Question 1) ” I know search engines ignore stop words in meta tags and title tags. Do search engines ignore stop or common words in domain names? Example www.therealestate.com or www.arealestate.com ” – Corey M.

Answer: Yes, to the degree in which the keywords have any effect the more common words within a domain name would be ignored. It is, however, important to keep in mind that search engines only place a limited amount of weight on keywords in a domain name. In my opinion the only time where a site keyword within a domain name wins a ranking war is when all other elements are equal between you and near-ranked competitor.

Additional Info: I like to do my due diligence before answering any question because frankly I need to be sure the rules have not changed overnight. Here are a couple links to pages that relate to this question:

• WebmasterWorld Posting (membership required)
• What are stop words? By Danny Sullivan at Search Engine Watch.

Question 2) “ Hi Ross – I just finished reading your blog… “SEO Answers #7: ” What Determines Duplicate Content SPAM? “and I have a question for you. Allow me to give you a little background: One of my clients has expanded their business into another state with a different name, but it is ultimately the same business. In order to develop a Web presence for this new, duplicate company in a new area, we created a second Website that has its own unique design, etc, but is ultimately a take off on the original site, using the same content, just minor differences to allow for the new name, geographic area, etc. The original site is optimized and of course contains the original content. The duplicate site is not optimized. In no way is our intention to “dupe” anything, but will this cause problems with the engines? We are not trying to get mileage off of the content by duplicating it… this is simply a second company that offers the same services, just in a different state. Each site is in its own domain and has its own URL. Your input? Your suggestions for a different solution? Thanks for your time.”

Answer: Simply put if you are truly not looking to get any mileage out of the content then you do not want rankings for it which implies that the site should be blocked to the search engines. I would recommend using your robots.txt file to block the spiders entirely to that website so you do not negatively affect your rankings on the original site. The fact is that duplicate content, good intentions or not, is frowned upon by the search engines and you are gambling by having the site available for spidering.

If, however, you do want the search engines to spider the content then you must rewrite it to avoid duplicate content penalties.

As a final note I would like to pose a question; did your client absolutely have to create a secondary website? In many cases I find that a client need not have created a second site; they just needed to add a new section to their site to manage the new target marketplace. The other option, which may have been appropriate in this case, is to add a subdomain to enjoy the benefits of a secondary home page on a pre-branded domain and fresh marketable URL; nearly the same benefits of having a secondary domain without the headache of marketing an entirely new website. Even in this case, however, you would not be able to use duplicate content so you would be faced with the same issues; either rewrite the content or block it from spiders.

Question 3) “Ross, in an attempt to improve my ranking in the search engines, I have been writing articles for article directories in the hopes of receiving quality backlinks. Recently I came across a site mypagerank.net, which I decided to check on my link popularity. The result indicated that I only had 18 backlinks. What can I do to increase the number of backlinks I am getting? I would have expected more as I have written many more articles and submitted my URL to many directories. Thanks, enjoy reading your articles” – Peter

Answer: First, good work making the effort to write articles, they are an excellent medium for promotion and I commend you for dedicating the time to writing. I certainly understand the significant commitment to time and research required to write usable content. Fortunately, there are a few techniques that may help you squeeze some extra benefits from your hard work:

1. Be Clear – Request Credit
   Are you being very clear to those republishing your content that you expect a linked credit for the copy? Simply stating that you allow syndication but request credit laid out in a particular linked format will do wonders. At StepForth we clearly request credit and we occasionally troll Google looking for those who have republished our content without credit; it is usually a simple matter to have the content removed or the appropriate link added. Hence, if you see this article does not give credit and provide a link to StepForth.com then please drop me a note, ross@stepforth.com
2. Pick a Powerful, Timely Topic
   Have you noticed a topic coming up regularly in forums? Perhaps a question that appears to be asked regularly? This is usually a good indication that an article discussing the topic would do well. Remember that many of the syndication networks online are looking for topics that will get readers and ultimately provide impressions for their advertisers. As a result, picking a hot topic will make a world of difference in how widely your article will get picked up.
3. Optimize the Title
   The title of your article needs to clearly relay the topic and should engage readers and editors alike. The title can make or break a story if it is too vague or boring.
4. Refer to Your Own Content
   It helps to provide inline links from your article to relevant previous articles or pages on your website. With practice and once you have built up a healthy reservoir of linkable articles it will soon be second nature to refer to links in a manner that is crucial to the article; so that editors note that the backlinks are relevant and play a legitimate role in the purpose of the article. Legitimacy of backlinks is crucial to make the ‘cut’ because editors are more likely to remove a link than keep one if it appears merely promotional.
5. Give Praise Where it is Due
   Within an article don’t be afraid to link to other sources where you have noted particularly good information, particularly other small business blogs. The fact is that some bloggers take a real shine to those who syndicate or give credit to their content and may just link back to you in thanks.
6. Put RSS On Your Side
   If you have not already done so ensure that your articles are syndicated on your website in RSS format as well. This can be easily accomplished by using a blog to publish your articles because most blog systems include automated feed creation. Many of the article syndication networks use articles solely through RSS. So as soon as you get a RSS feed you should go out and tell the world about it. Try using Google and search for “submit feed” or ” add blog ” and you are certain to find some great sites to submit your syndication feed.

There is a lot more information on this topic so I will provide some links that should help you further:

• Article Writing Tips – excellent resource I stumbled across
• Related forum thread in SEO Chat
• Related forum thread on Digital Point

After all this work is done, keep in mind not every proper (credited) use of your article will deliver the benefits of a backlink. The search engines are frankly too smart to give credit to every article link because of the obvious duplication and the unfortunate proliferation of article scraping sites (sites that republish articles to try and make their sites appear authoritative). That said, the links acquired from truly authoritative sites would pay off as backlinks and hopefully with the more important benefit – direct traffic.

As a final note remember that articles are meant for human consumption so be sure to proofread your work and ensure that the topic is either timely or originally written enough to be useful. I am not saying this applies to you, however, it is important that the quality of the content is high enough to merit wide spread syndication.

Earlier in December Google cut off access to its SOAP API for new customers. This move has concerned many developers and webmasters.

The Google Search API was still in beta and designed to allow developers to create programs to perform a Google search using SOAP. (Simple Object, Access, Protocol).
At code.google.com the site notes:

“As of December 5, 2006, we are no longer issuing new API keys for the SOAP Search API. Developers with existing SOAP Search API keys will not be affected.” Read more…

A research and development partnership between NASA and Google was announced back in September of 2005, and now, more than a year later, they are just about ready to collaborate.

The two companies will work together through their formal agreement to study a number of issues from scientific-data search technology to expanding Google Earth to the moon and Mars.

According to CNET ” the first collaboration between Google and NASA Ames will concern the availability of NASA information over the Internet. For example, NASA Administrator Michael Griffin said in a statement that “soon” there will be Google Earth flyovers available for the surfaces of Mars and the moon. Additional data will include real-time weather forecasting and visualization, as well as tracking of the International Space Station and space shuttle activity”.

Not all projects will involve incorporating NASA information into Google but will include a number of research based items such as dealing with human-computer interaction and education-related collaborations.

According to ZDNet, something interesting has occurred. A hacker taping into wireless internet connections and disrupting service has been sentenced to 15 months in prison, nearly $20,000 in restitution, and 3 years of supervised released. What makes this story interesting is the actual nail in his coffin so to speak. Read more…

Time to give you a little update on Google’s moving and shaking as of late:

1. Google has acquired Endexon, a European geo-mapping company which will provide Google with an excellent European base of operations for their map products in that marketplace.
2. Google is now helping users get setup with Google Apps for Your Domain by providing a domain purchase option within the setup area. Here is the press release and a snippet that sums it all up: Read more…

With the Internet growing so rapidly do you ever wonder if you are missing a new trend or technology that could boost your bottom line? Well, there just happens to be a piece of the Internet that I bet you haven’t made the leap to yet and it is going to be BIG. This new space is mobile search and mobile Internet surfing. Read more…

Just under a couple of hours ago Yahoo! announced a “Weather Report”, which, in Yahoo terms means that their search results are getting revamped (if only slightly). Apparently the update began on Sunday and is expected to be completed by Wednesday morning. There isn’t much to this notice other than it is being applied, but it is worth knowing about.

Remember not to panic if you see your Yahoo rankings fluctuate over the next couple of days. Search engine updates like this tend to produce a ranking shuffle and it is useless to act on any changes until the dust settles.

I will keep you up to date if any of the changes have a measurable impact.

For those that missed my interview with Jim Hedger on WebmasterRadio.FM last Thursday here is a direct link to my archived interview. Please note that you will have to fast forward about 20 minutes (about a 1/3 of the way on the Quicktime status bar) to get to my interview.

WebmasterRadio.FM has released a fascinating, if not alarming, story series based on the issues of click fraud and terrorist fund raising that is sure to be the subject of many water cooler sessions. As the story unfolds we will know more but here is a snippet that describes the concerns/accusations against the pay per click industry:

“The series starts with an interview with Clarence Briggs, CEO of hosting firm AIT.com. Mr. Briggs was a lead proponent in one of the class action lawsuits Google settled in the spring of 2006. Because the case was settled out of court, Google was never forced to show how they charge for some clicks and dismiss others as invalid. Mr. Briggs maintains Google is doing business as usual, just as they did before the class actions were initiated.

“During the interview, Mr. Briggs noted the use of click fraud by criminal and terrorist organizations. Our investigation has found several incidents of this type of activity. We have also found evidence of bot-nets used to facilitate click fraud, primarily against Google advertisers.” (source, WebmasterRadio.FM – linked here)

Jim Hedger, a past writer at StepForth and a good friend is one of the leaders of this investigation so I am sure to get notified as soon as more information is released – at which time I will post a follow up ASAP.

Following in the steps of Google, Microsoft has launched a Beta version of its non-copyright book search. Live Book Search doesn’t look like much, and when visiting the site there are no immediate indications that there is anything different here than the regular live search, but performing a search will reveal book results, and a change in the title tag to “Live Search Books: ”

The new Live Book Search will include more than 25 million pages from the British Library which had received funding from Microsoft to transfer the out of copyright material into digital format. It will also include collections scanned from the University of California as well as the University of Toronto.

Sometime next year these book search results will be integrated into the regular windows live search results after the beta period has ended. Book search will also be integrated as a category in the main Live search engine.