A few days ago, Google published on its Webmaster Central Blog that website owner can now submit sitemaps for sites that exist on separate hosts from a single dedicated host. This is a useful tool. But should you use it?

I think it depends. How much do you want Google to know about you?

The real issue is that you have to prove that you own both websites. Do you want Google knowing that about you? If not, then you probably don’t want to take advantage of this sitemap service. But if you don’t care then it’s a useful service.

Now you can submit separate sitemaps for two different websites that you own even if they are on separate web hosts. All you do is go through the usual sitemap creation and verification process for each sitemap that you want to create. Then you can store your sitemaps, both of them, on either host. This only works for Google, though, not all search engines. But Google does say that it is “in discussion” with other search engines to solve the issue of how to make sitemap submissions easier across the board. We’ll wait to see what happens.

From WebPro

Sooner or later, it seems that some company would happen upon a good combination of search results and public relations. There’s no telling when this could occur – Google itself seemed to come out of nowhere, and I don’t believe “The Birds” ever explained why those little beasties attacked Bodega Bay – but the search giant might do well to keep its eyes open.

Not so fast there, Ranger. Google didn’t come out of nowhere. There is a history and a story behind Google’s success. It started in the late ’90’s when Yahoo! was top dog for finding websites of interest. At that time, Yahoo! was a directory, not a search engine. But they were a very popular directory. Top search engines at that time included AltaVista, MetaCrawler, Excite, Infoseek, Ask Jeeves (remember Jeeves?), Inktomi and Dogpile, which was really an aggregator more than a search engine. That was 10 years ago, 1997. No one dominated search at the time because search was in its infancy and the companies interested in search as a technology were still themselves vying for recognition.

Google officially launched in 1998 and was developed out of its forerunner, BackRub. The founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, contacted Yahoo! to see if the directory would be interested in purchasing their technology. Instead of seizing the opportunity, Yahoo! founder David Filo told them to start their own search engine and he’d talk to them after their technology “fully developed and scalable”. Brin and Page had no interest in running their own company, but they took Filo’s advice anyway.

It didn’t take long for word to spread and Google began getting press recognition. They were billed as the best search engine in the world within one year. The cold, hard truth is, they were. Over the years, Google has continued to improve its technology and quickly dominated the search market, driving many competitors out of business or into something else.

Anyway, all of this can be found on Google’s own website and Wikipedia. Granted, Google’s rise to fame was very rapid, but it due mainly to word of mouth. As soon as Web aficionados learned of Google’s search technology, able to produce excellent search results based on user queries, then more and more people started using it instead of the alternative. It is perhaps the most successful viral marketing campaign in history, only it wasn’t planned as a viral marketing campaign. It just happened. I’d hardly call that coming out of nowhere.

This does illustrate one principle: To be successful online, you’ve got to have a great product. You have to be ahead of your competition and corner the market in something. Don’t try to reinvent the wheel. Just improve it. If you can do that and stay ahead of others who are trying to do that then you can succeed online. Oh, and impress Google. It’s called SEO.

Link popularity refers to the number of inbound links you have pointing at your website. Do you know how to check this?

There are various tools you can use to check your link popularity. Which one you use depends a lot on your preferences, but I like MarketLeap.

The reason I like MarketLeap is because you can also check your search engine saturation on the website. It’s the only link popularity checker that I’m aware that also allows you to look at your SES. So it has benefit for that reason alone.

Other link popularity checkers include:

• SEO Chat
• LinkPopularity.com
• Submit Express

Any of these tools will work for checking your link popularity, but I use MarketLeap. Which one you use is up to you, but you should check your link popularity from time to time to see where you stand on inbound links.

If you have a network of blogs that are connected to each other by links and they don’t have any obvious relationship other than the fact that they are owned by you, I’d suggest that you de-link them.

As you know, Google recently updated everyone’s PageRank. That’s likely good news for most of you, but for some of you, especially you old-timers who are used to doing things a certain way, you might have got picked on this time. There were two ways that Google punched back at web-savvy entrepreneurs who have been, even unwittingly, gaming the system – or just making out with its downside.

Google’s Relevance Crusade
First, Google doesn’t like paid links. We all know that, right? So if you’ve been buying or selling links, especially selling, then you likely took a hit. Even if it just looked like you might have been selling links but have never done that then it’s likely that you took a hit. Que sera, sera. Right?

The second group of webmasters who took it on the chin are the same type of webmaster that I am. They own several businesses that may or may not be related (in my case, they are) and they have been linked together in either a circular fashion or in a fashion like a spider web so that all the cross links cross each other in a weird wired sort of way. What’s so wrong with this?

The problem is that many webmasters will own several non-related businesses and link them together so that they drive traffic from the more popular websites to the less popular. There’s nothing wrong with that except that the more trafficked websites tend to also have higher PageRank, which these webmasters have been using to boost the PageRank of their less popular websites.

Another way this is often played out is that several webmasters will join a loose network where they agree to link to each other even though there is no sensible reason to do so. Their websites have no related subject matter so why should they link to each other?

The Relevance Of Bad Links
Google’s way of dealing with this relevance phenomenon is to make relevance a more important factor in its PageRank determinations. It was already important, but it just became more important. In fact, it’s so important now you might be penalized if you link to sites that are not related in subject matter in any way, even if you own both websites.

I personally didn’t take a hit in PageRank this time around, but I know that Google will only work to perfect its algorithms and make them better. There is likely to be another tweak in this algorithm between now and the next update and I don’t want to get caught in the crossfire. So I’m making some changes and I would suggest that you too should rethink how you link your websites together – those that are related and those that aren’t.

Last week, Brick Marketing launched another blog. The Website Marketing Journal is focused on bringing daily blog posts to help website owners improve their overall marketing efforts for each website they own. Going beyond search engine optimization and web page design, Website Marketing Journal is devoted to covering the full scope of marketing a website without it being too broad of a subject matter.

Website Marketing Journal was officially launched on September 1, 2007. Since then, Brick Marketing has posted five blog posts, including:

• Understanding Website Search Engine Optimization
• Website Marketing Tools For Building Your Safe List
• Easy Ways To Boost Your Website’s Lead Generation Potential
• Branding Your Website
• Choosing Better Keywords For Website Search Engine Optimization

Over the next few weeeks, Website Marketing Journal will cover the following topics more in depth:

• Website branding
• Website customer management
• Website lead generation
• Website local advertising
• Website marketing content
• Website marketing tools
• Website sales
• Website search engine marketing
• Website search engine optimization

For daily insights on how to make the most of your website marketing potential through organic search strategies as well as through other effective website marketing tools, be sure to read the Website Marketing Journal.

For some time now the search engines have discounted what they call “stop words.” These are words like “the,” “and,” “a,” and “an,” which do not have any real significance for most searches. For instance, if I am searching the mating habits of wild Australian kangaroos then I might search for the phrase:

The search engines see this:

This is the way the search engine view your search query because the words “the” and “of” add no particular meaning to them regarding your search query. Therefore, they are called “stop words” and the search engine merely ignore them when crawling. The spiders stop crawling at those words and proceed beyond them.

But this is inadequate as a hard and fast rule. What if the stop word is an important part of the search query? For instance, when the word “The” is an important part of a title like “The Washington Post.”

Because “The” is a part of the title, it is not counted as a stop word. Reasonably, however, if you were to search for just “washington post,” the search engines would know that you mean The Washington Post, but for less popular queries they may not. That’s why Google and Yahoo! have made an exception for some uses of the stop words. Until now, Microsoft Live Search has not.

Today, on their blog, the Live Search crew reported that they have changed their algorithms to make some exceptions for the use of these stop words. That’s a good thing. It means that Live Search is on the road to being more competitive. It might be too late for some people, but for those who are regular users of Live Search, it’s not a moment too soon.

Does your church have a website? Is it SEOd?

One might be tempted to think that houses of worship don’t need SEO or that faith alone can move search engine mountains. It doesn’t matter how big your mustard seed is, SEO can’t hurt.

I’m not talking about the sleazy kind of SEO that is often engaged in by unethical entrepreneurs who seek a short term advantage over the competition. I’m talking about the tried and true kind of SEO that involves long-term thinking and strategic planning. Sure, your church can throw up a website with a pretty design and all your members can know how to access it to find what they want. But how about visitors? How about those new to town who are looking for a church to join? How about others who are performing religious research and could use the free resources on your church’s website to discover what Christianity is all about?

If you expect people to be able find your church then you need SEO. It isn’t enough just put up a church website and make it look pretty. You should optimize each web page of your church’s website around the right keywords so that people who are looking for certain kind of information in your area can find it. Otherwise, how do you expect your neighbors to pick up their cross? Who are they going to follow?