http://www.about-adsense.com/adsense-web-tool.html
This is the predictor-view, it's task is two-fold. Firstly to give you a rough idea of how your page's listing will look in Google, and secondly to find every link on the page that the search-engine would.
This list of links is ideally quite long, yet not more than 100 or so.
If you are using Flash or DHTML navigation you might find that none of the links show-up in Poodle's Predictor. In that case you should add the links inside -noscript- tags, or as an alternative navigation system.
Underneath the main listing, you see three links, Diagnostics View - Source-code View - Header-Meta View.
The Diagnostics View opens the URL in Poodle Diagnostic. This gives you a color-coded view of the page through the 'eyes' of the search-engine spider.
The colors reflect whether various important tags and attributes were used on the page. The text displayed should read logically - some alt and title attributes will show in your page, and this could give unexpected results, like "welcome to [company_logo.gif]".
The Source-code View speaks for itself, it's a color-coded view of the source-code of the page. The color-coding again reflects the use of tags and attributes with importance for search-engines.
Finally the Header-Meta View will toggle the header and meta-tag section into view.
Other related pages are:
Iconoclast, Dec. 7, 2000
We estimate that more than 100 million queries are entered at search engines worldwide every day. Because a majority of these searches result in thousands, if not millions, of results, most content owners want their URLs to filter to the top. That's where search-engine optimization enters the picture.
Search engines are the most widely used navigational tools and the most misunderstood promotional tools. They have spawned a large number of companies that profess to practice the black magic of search-engine optimization. We found more than 250 such firms. So, how to choose a good one? For answers, ICONOCAST conducted a subscriber survey in November.
To their credit, most online marketers submit listings to search engines manually (71%) rather than using an automated service (52%). While some portals, notably Yahoo! and LookSmart, offer faster processing for a fee, only 20% of our readers have taken that route:
| Listing Methods Used | |
|---|---|
| Manual submission | 71% |
| Automated submission | 52 |
| Paid for faster submission | 20 |
| Paid for directory listing | 20 |
| None of the above | 16 |
In this most measurable of media, little formal attention is being paid to traffic from the busiest sites: Just over half of the 404 respondents regularly track incoming visits from portals. About the same number analyze logs for search terms that visitors use to find them. Competitive analysis of rankings and metatags are used even less frequently, 42% and 29%, respectively.
| Measurement Methods Used | |
|---|---|
| Measure traffic from specific search engines | 53% |
| Logfile analysis of search terms | 49 |
| Compare competitive rankings | 42 |
| Examine competitive metatags | 29 |
| Other | 9 |
The most common method used to improve a site's ranking involves metatags (61%), followed by tweaking page titles (44%). The results also show that marketers have not fully realized the growing significance of Google (which also powers Yahoo!). Google bases site popularity on the number of inbound links, not on site architecture. Reciprocal linking (32%) and multiple home pages (21%), which directly address portal indexing methods, are used by less than a third of respondents.
| Methods Used to Improve Rankings | |
|---|---|
| Changing metatags | 61% |
| Changing page titles | 44 |
| Reciprocal linking | 32 |
| Purchasing multiple domains | 28 |
| Multiple home pages | 21 |
| Hiding keywords in background | 18 |
| Pay-per-click | 13 |
| None of the above | 13 |
While a large number of outfits provide submission and positioning services, most are not well known. The most popular, Microsoft's bCentral, garnered a 41% awareness. That's because Microsoft acquired LinkExchange, which, in turn, acquired SubmitIt and PositionAgent early on:
| Awareness of Company Reputation | ||
|---|---|---|
| Rnk | Company | % |
| 1. | bCentral (SubmitIt/PositionAgent) | 41% |
| 2. | IntraPromote | 36 |
| 3. | SubmitExpress | 30 |
| 4. | PositionPro | 28 |
| 5. | Web-Ignite | 27 |
| 6. | add2.net | 27 |
| 7. | MoreVisibility.com | 26 |
| 8. | Webster Group | 26 |
| 9. | @WebSitePublicity.com | 25 |
Despite the vast number of searches, only 52% of subscribers said portal rankings were important or very important to their company's marketing strategy. That such a big opportunity is routinely ignored suggests a lot of education is needed to get mainstream marketers up to speed (our readers are a cut above average, so draw your own conclusions about marketers at large).
While metatags, keywords and multiple entry pages are not routine marketing tactics, as budgets tighten and CEOs push for more profitability, expect more marketers to emphasize traffic quality over quantity. This trend, coupled with relatively low awareness of search-engine firms and a lack of in-house expertise, points to a big market opportunity.