[thelist] Any consensus on SEO?

[Christian Heilmann]

> I have been out of the loop for a while but the last time I heard about
> SEO people were talking about the fact that Meta tags were really
> useless to promote a better placement on SE.
> At the time Google was changing the algorithm and many top placements
> were losing their places.
> I am now trying to make some sense of it all but it's hard to figure out
> what's right and wrong when you get so many conflicting information on a
> single search.
> SO my question to the experts is...what is the consensus among the
> programmers in regards to SEO and is paying for the sponsored links a
> good idea nowadays?

A good plan is to think of your visitors and content first, then about
SEO. A web site that makes a lot of sense in a text browser and has a
lot of valid, interesting content will also fare well in search
engines. Links in and out are also very important. Search engines
change their values so rapidly that as a developer you just have not
the time to keep up with it.

There are some good points there: http://evolt.org/node/60355

Google also published the sitemaps lately, which is a nice way to cater google:
http://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/login?sourceid=gsm&subid=us-et-about2

As for paid ads, no idea, but make sure that they are placed correctly:
http://www.jottings.com/2005/03/10/googles-golden-triangle/

HTH
Chris


--
Chris Heilmann
Blog: http://www.wait-till-i.com
Writing: http://icant.co.uk/
Binaries: http://www.onlinetools.org/