NYCPHP Meetup

[inforequest]

Warren Myers volcimaster-at-gmail.com |nyphp dev/internal group use| wrote:

> I've seen a lot of BAD search engine optimization advice - and very 
> little GOOD.
> Hosting the blogs on the same server shouldn't matter, though, as 
> places like Blogger and WordPress.com do it all the time. And both 
> host some blogs that score high on searches, and others that don't.
> From my understanding of Google's technical information, and personal 
> experience, a lot of your search hits are going to come from how many 
> people link to you, and how much traffic you get - not what server 
> you're hosted on.
>
> WMM

Let's not forget that SEO is search engine "optimization". Doing pretty 
good or even very good is not optimal, it's good or very good. You move 
to SEO when you want to be competitive i.e. purposefully take steps 
designed to get you to rank above the other guy.

I think that's why alot of "SEO advice" is useless. "Search engine 
friendly" is not SEO, it's good webmastering. In this case, doing what 
wordpress does because it hasn't hurt them is not SEO. In fact, 
Wordpress uses subdomains for it's own commercial purposes (not for the 
benefit of the bloggers) which is optimiation in the other direction as 
far as the blogger is concerned. Why try to be like Wordpress?

It is fact that your website will be ranked for it's "trustworthiness" 
if and when it is competitive in it's niche in the search engine results 
pages. That may involve many factors that Google has determined indicate 
trustworthiness. One thing that can hurt your trust weighting is being 
on server with spammers. Another is cross linking multiple sites on the 
same theme, which is easily detected if the sites have the same WHOIS 
data, use the same js or templates, or share the same IP or server. None 
of these are "triggers" as far as I know, but are factors for 
consideration when and if your site is considered for it's 
trustworthiness. That can happen when you achieve a top rank, or when 
somene questions your worth, or at other times. It can also happen 
automatically when the algorithms are tested or updated.

Hosting on one server matters if it impacts your performance, your 
apparent trustworthiness, or if you are doing anything sketchy and such 
hosting makes it easy to suspect that you are.





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"If you think this stuff is confusing, you should try optimizing websites for search engine exposure."  john andrews SEO http://www.johnon.com