The general reasoning behind people or companies still wanting or attempting to use meta tags is: "Meta tags will make all the difference for our web site" or "We have heard or read of companies that their web sites were placed way on top because of meta tags". Our response to such statements is, four or five years ago, it could have been true somewhat, even if some people don't exactly agree on that statement.

At the beginning of the Internet, meta tags were originally incorporated in a site as an attempt to better assist webmasters. They were also included to help search engines discover what their site was all about. Well, as one might expect, it didn't take very long that some people found a way to short-circuit the system as it were.

Some actually tried and successfully got around in abusing this technique by writing useless keywords into their meta tags in hopes to trick the search engines to rank them higher. Today, and because of all this abuse, most major search engines, especially Google, are placing less and less importance in the presence or absence of meta tags and their content.

Keywords are basic raw material used in Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Keyword selection must be done using Keyword Research where we use special tools to find out a list of Keywords (search terms) searched by targeted audience, recently. Keyword can be single word, two or three words, multiple words and theme based.

Basically There are 3 Types of Keywords:-

1. Keyword of Single word:- Keyword of Single word helps in bringing huge traffic but these terms are mostly not relevant these days, as, searchers mostly use two or three keyword to find out their required information.
2. Keyword of Multiple words:- Keyword of Multiple words is used to target a specific traffic, which leads to high sale, top position in search result listing as well as improves page rank competition. Keyword of Multiple words are known as Specific Keyword where we target a specific audience & not general searcher. Keyword of Multiple words helps to target a specific page for a specific audience.
3. Keywords based on Theme:- Keywords based on Theme are used in each page of web site to focus on a specific topic correlated to a targeted topic or idea . Keywords based on Theme effectively contribute in growth of informative pages for its site focusing on different related topics.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) are methods that aid in the improvement of a website's ranking in the listings of search engines. There are different kinds of listings that are displayed in the results pages of search engines, such as paid inclusion, pay-per-click advertisements, and organic search results. Utilizing SEO can increase the quantity of site visitors that acts on the activity that the site intends.

Here are some of the most useful ones---

1. Title tags should be written in a creative way. It should be created with the strongest keyword targets as the basis. It is the most important tag of a web site when it comes to optimization. The specific keyword of the web site that is being optimized should be the one that is placed in the title tag. It goes without saying that every site should have its own title tag.

2. Carefully select the words and phrases to be assigned to Alt tags. Alt tags are not really mandatory, but they are provided for text browsers because images do not get displayed in web browsers, and it is the Alt tags that give information to the users about its significance. The rule in Alt tags is fairly simple: only key phrases or key words should be put in Alt tags, overdoing may cause a site to disappear in search results or get banned from it indefinitely.

3. Manage keyword density. Keyword density is the percentage occupied by keywords or keyword phrases in a web page. Ideally, keywords are used once in the title tag, the heading tag, and in bold text. Keywords should be placed at the top of the page, and phrases can be inserted in every paragraph, depending on how long the paragraph is.

4. Determine the appropriate page size for the site. Speed is a vital element to the success of a site, and it important to both online visitors and the search engines. It is recommended to limit web pages under 15K.

5. Create rich themes for the pages. Search engines are increasingly getting particular about themes. Content should be created as often as possible, and the pages should be maintained to 200 to 500 words. The content should be created in relation to the market, and should be linked to the other related content present on the site.

6. Make the site's design attractive to the viewer. All efforts in optimization will be in vain if the site is poorly designed and if its contents are hard for viewers to read. There should be more text content than HTML content in the web site. Viewers should be able to use the pages in all major browsers. It should be noted that most search engines veer away from JavaScript and Flash.

Advertisers should keep in mind that simplicity is the basis of a successful SEO campaign. Sites should be easy for viewers to locate, follow, and read, and should contain relevant content. Following the techniques above will prove worthwhile for site owners in the future.

"Dangling links" are simply links that point to any page with no outgoing links. They affect the model because it is not clear where their weight should be distributed, and there are a large number of them. Often these dangling links are simply pages that we have not downloaded yet..........Because dangling links do not affect the ranking of any other page directly, we simply remove them from the system until all the page ranks are calculated. After all the page ranks are calculated they can be added back in without affecting things significantly." - extract from the original page rank paper by Google’s founders, Sergey Brin and Lawrence Page.

A dangling link is a link to a page that has no links going from it, or a link to a page that Google hasn't indexed. In both cases Google removes the links shortly after the start of the calculations and reinstates them shortly before the calculations are finished. In this way, their effect on the page rank of other pages in minimal.

Although it may be functionally good to link to pages within the site without those pages linking out again, it is bad for page rank. It is pointless wasting page rank unnecessarily, so always make sure that every page in the site links out to at least one other page in the site.

1. Make sure you update all of the pages on your site frequently. Unchanged sites can be dropped by some sites and nobody wants to go onto a site and see something last updated in 2005 do they? It could be a good idea also to put a last updated counter so it shows to people you update it a lot so they will check back.

2. Allow customers and visitors to your site to be able to sign up for discounts and special offers. Put a form on your site to allow them to be able to sign up for a weekly, fortnightly or even monthly newsletter which they may be interested in.

3. Add a link to allow people to add your site to their favorites or send this to a friend, it will remind people about your site when they take a look in their bookmarks and think “Oh look, I wonder if this site has any updates”

4. Make sure that your site is easy to find if people forget the address. I have wanted to visit a website but could never find it. The best thing to do is put links so users can add your site to social bookmarking sites, so even if their computer dies they will be able to find their way back.

5. Never spam anybody who has signed up for a newsletter. If people no longer wish to receive these then make sure you do take them off the mailing list. This makes you look respectful and that you are not a cowboy who will just spam peoples’ in boxes to try and sell their product or get the odd page view.

6. Make a “Whats New?” section. People will instantly go to this to take a look at what has recently been updating and following on from earlier they will like a site that is always updated and will probably come back to take a look at what is new and what has been updated.