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SWeCS NEWSLETTER - 30 May 2005

In this issue...

- Google's New View Of Links
- This Fortnight's Question
- More Recent Website Awards
- Competition Promotions
- Resources For Small Business

GOOGLE'S NEW VIEW OF LINKS

Look out, Google have updated their ranking algorithm again. And this time their targetting inbound link structures.

Everyone's known for some time that the more inbound links you have to your website, the higher your site will rank in the searh engines. This is referred to as "link popularity".

But some webmasters have gone to extraordinary lengths to increase the number of links to their site, with no intention of building genuine links, but instead to simply increase their link popularity with the search engines.

The results of this include websites with link pages that contain hundreds of unrelated links, through to those websites that overuse "Anchor text" for their links. Anchor text is what is written in the hyperlink, and as an example, you might get a site that sells garden hoses placing a hyperlink with the word garden hoses in it every time they write the word garden hoses, and get all other linking sites to write garden hoses in their links too, in the attempt to get search engines to rank them higher for garden hoses. Get the idea?

Well Google have had enough of the whole lot, and recent changes have been put in place to penalise sites that do this. So, if you have been building lots of irrelevant links, you may find that your site is penalised (pushed down in the rankings).

As we've said a few times before, here are the best ways to build incoming links to your site, that are safe with Google and the other search engines:

• Vary the type of links that are pointing to your site. Vary the words that are in the links. Also vary the kinds of sites they come from
  
  
• Don't go overboard with reciprocal links. Linking to a number of related (and even unrelated) sites is fine, but if you randomly build hundreds of links with other irrelevant sites, you'll eventually get picked up
  
  
• Build as many "one way" links as possible. That is, links that come to your site, but where you don't link back. Google sees these as the most important kind of link - one that truly shows your site is useful. How do you get these? Provide some genuinely good and unique content, and you'll find people will soon link to your site because they find it interesting.
  
  
• Build your links methodically and slowly. Google can also now penalise sites that show a huge jump in inbound links (suggesting artificial link building)
  
  
• Never participate in "link farm programs", or any other kind of system where you agree to link to a large group of sites to build link popularity

THIS FORTNIGHT'S QUESTION

This fortnight's question comes Clare:

"How long does it take for you to build a website? And what about updating it afterwards?"

It depends on how big the website is, but we usually advise that we can complete your website within 2 weeks. This depends on a number of factors, including the kind of information you need on there, as well as how quickly you get back to us after we email you a draft. Sometimes we can finish it much sooner.

As far as updates are concerned, again it depends on what's involved, but most updates can be done within 24 hours. We can also install systems that let you update your own website 24x7.

Got a question? Send it to us at admin@southwestecommerce.com and we'll do our best to answer it, as well as publish one every fortnight for everyone to see.

MORE RECENT WEBSITE AWARDS

South West eCommerce has recently won some more website awards from the Australian Web Designers Community.

Our most recent awards were won for:

www.soconstruction.com.au

www.soundboathire.com.au

www.bcabooks.com

COMPETITION PROMOTIONS

Are you interested in promoting yourself through the provision of a competition prize?

South West Life (www.southwestlife.com.au) now has over 11,000 subscribers, and a recent survey showed that the monthly competition was one of the most popular sections of the website.

In return for providing a prize for our monthly competitions, you receive the following:

• Advertising on the home page, competition entry form, and in the mailout
• All ads contain links to your site
• Full statistics on how many people visited your site from the advertisements

As a rough guide, many businesses are receiving between 300 and 400 website referrals by providing a prize. This amount varies depending on the type of prize.

If you'd like to advertise on South West Life in this way, simply email admin@southwestlife.com.au.

RESOURCES FOR SMALL BUSINESS

Ecommerce Library

Browse through the SWeCS Ecommerce Library, full of FREE information about getting more out of the Internet. Sections include Web Site Development, Web Site Promotion & Internet Marketing, Online Commerce, Computer & Technical Issues, and Miscellaneous.

Newsletter Archives

The SWeCS Newsletter archives provides a wealth of FREE information on small business and the Internet. Browse through the main topics or search for your particular query.

SWeCS Affiliate Program

Start up another income stream, by earning commissions for each referral who signs up for one of our services.

Affiliate Directory

Browse through a list of reviewed Affiliate programs. Let us do the work of testing it out for you!

Do you know of a resource that should be added here? Email us and let us know. There is only one condition - it must be free.

OTHER EMAIL NEWSLETTERS

Here's some other email newsletters you might like:

www.southwestlife.com.au

www.dunsboroughbayvillageresort.com/news/newsindex.htm

www.west-oz.com/newsletter/newsletter.asp

http://derekstockley.com/newsletters/news-index.html