&lt;P&gt;What search engine do you use when looking for something on the web?&amp;nbsp; &lt;/P&gt;&lt;P&gt;Did you say Google?&amp;nbsp; &lt;/P&gt;&lt;P&gt;If so, you are part of the majority of web surfers for which Google is the de facto search, the first place to look for something specific, and the search engine that all others are measured against.&amp;nbsp; The way I look at it, if your site isn't listed well in Google, then your site isn't well listed.&lt;/P&gt;&lt;P&gt;This article assumes that you have a properly marked up page that is search engine friendly.&amp;nbsp; I've found it best to avoid any trickery and concentrate on good planning and research combined with good content.&amp;nbsp; Just make sure that you have appropriate spider-able textural content for the GoogleBot, a descriptive title, and maybe even a keyword in your domain name for the best results.&amp;nbsp; While I don't suggest abandoning branding in favor of keyword stuffing, a keyword in the domain name can't hurt.&lt;/P&gt;&lt;P&gt;&lt;STRONG&gt;What's Indexed?&lt;/STRONG&gt;&lt;/P&gt;&lt;P&gt;When assessing your site, the first thing to do is to see if your site is listed, how well it's listed, and how many pages are listed.&amp;nbsp; The way I accomplish the latter is to perform a search like this:&lt;/P&gt;&lt;P&gt;&quot;+www.copacetix.com&quot; site:www.copacetix.com&lt;/P&gt;&lt;P&gt;Goggle's explanation of the query is:&lt;/P&gt;&lt;P&gt;Searched pages from &lt;A href=&quot;http://www.copacetix.com&quot;&gt;www.copacetix.com&lt;/A&gt; for &quot;+www.copacetix.com&quot;&lt;/P&gt;&lt;P&gt;If you study this query closely, you'll see why this is more effective than just searching for the domain and clicking the similar pages link.&amp;nbsp; For this particular example, Google found only five pages&amp;nbsp;through the similar pages link, but found 32 with my query.&lt;/P&gt;&lt;P&gt;Of course, being listed well in Google is easier said then done.&amp;nbsp; I have read many theoretical articles about Google SEO and SEO in general, but few focus on the nitty-gritty.&amp;nbsp; With that said, here are some details:&lt;/P&gt;&lt;P&gt;&lt;STRONG&gt;The Google Dance&lt;/STRONG&gt;&lt;/P&gt;&lt;P&gt;Google has at least four different indexes that are manipulated to test different results when the Google Dance is on.&amp;nbsp; During the dance you can get a glimpse of how your site ranks in their different indexes.&amp;nbsp; If you do a search in the default Google index around the time of an update, and then do the same search in one of the other indexes, you will get different results.&amp;nbsp; For example, on February 22 you could have gone to &lt;A href=&quot;http://www2.google.com/&quot;&gt;http://www2.google.com/&lt;/A&gt; to preview the new Google index and compared the current listing (&lt;A href=&quot;http://www.google.com&quot;&gt;www.google.com&lt;/A&gt;) to next month's (www2.google.com).&lt;/P&gt;&lt;P&gt;The time surrounding Google's updates is normally referred to as the Google Dance because the databases are switched around and back a couple of times before things become stable. &lt;/P&gt;&lt;P&gt;Google does its dance about once a month.&amp;nbsp; The only way to be sure and catch it is to make sure you search the different indexes (www2.google.com, www4.google.com, etc.) each day near the time of the month you expect the dance. (This past month the dance was well underway by the 20th.) Generally, even if the new index is chosen to become the default &lt;A href=&quot;http://www.google.com&quot;&gt;www.google.com&lt;/A&gt; index, it can take a few more days before it is stable.&lt;/P&gt;&lt;P&gt;&lt;STRONG&gt;PageRank&lt;/STRONG&gt;&lt;/P&gt;&lt;P&gt;Once you've watched the dance and determined what you have listed, you will want to check your Google PageRank.&amp;nbsp; To check this, you can download the &lt;A href=&quot;http://toolbar.google.com/&quot;&gt;Google Toolbar&lt;/A&gt;, which displays the PageRank for each site you visit.&amp;nbsp; Visit your sites and mouse over the PageRank graphic and it will tell you the rank for the page.&amp;nbsp; While PageRank is not a perfect indication of how important Google thinks your site is, it can give you a good idea.&lt;/P&gt;&lt;P&gt;There are many arguments among web professionals about PageRank - how important it is, how to improve it, etc.&amp;nbsp; I think a couple of things are clear:&lt;/P&gt;&lt;P&gt;The Google Toolbar's PageRank approximates how important Google thinks a site is.&lt;/P&gt;&lt;P&gt;GoogleBot crawls the internal and external links on your site, and if it finds an external link back to you, you get points for a better ranking.&amp;nbsp; In addition, links from important sites give you more points.&amp;nbsp; For example, if you have a directory listing from a highly ranked DMOZ category, it will be worth more than a link from Jacko's Geocities homepage-o-links.&lt;/P&gt;&lt;P&gt;Google also uses PageRank as a supplement to its basic search algorithm, which is based on the page title and body text.&amp;nbsp; For instance, if a number of pages about women's judo ranked the same on content, then Google would present the one that has the best PageRank, or more precisely, which one was most important.&lt;/P&gt;&lt;P&gt;So how do you improve&amp;nbsp;PageRank?&amp;nbsp; You can start by being listed in all of the popular directories. DMOZ is a good choice, as they supply Google with their directory listings.&amp;nbsp; Additionally you will need to secure some inbound links.&amp;nbsp; While this can be difficult to do effectively, make sure you get links from sites that are at least as important to Google as yours are, and make sure you get them from sites that won't hurt your site's theme.&lt;/P&gt;&lt;P&gt;&lt;STRONG&gt;Themes&lt;/STRONG&gt;&lt;/P&gt;&lt;P&gt;Google also wants to know what your page is about in addition to the words it contains.&amp;nbsp; Some people call this your site's theme.&amp;nbsp; You can influence the ranking somewhat by naming the text of a link a keyword instead of a description of your internal pages.&amp;nbsp; &lt;/P&gt;&lt;P&gt;For example:&lt;/P&gt;&lt;P&gt;&amp;lt;a href=&quot;http://www.copacetix.com&quot;&amp;gt;main&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt;&amp;nbsp; - no&lt;BR&gt;&amp;lt;a href=&quot;http://www.copacetix.com&quot;&amp;gt;keyword&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt; - yes&lt;/P&gt;&lt;P&gt;More importantly, you want the pages that link to you from outside your site to have your keywords in their links.&amp;nbsp; Google use this text to help determine what the link represents.&amp;nbsp; Moreover, Google considers the theme of the site that is linking to you when determining your own site's theme.&amp;nbsp; &lt;/P&gt;&lt;P&gt;&lt;STRONG&gt;Cheap Tricks&lt;/STRONG&gt;&lt;/P&gt;&lt;P&gt;A cheap way to get a Yahoo! listing for your site is to find a Yahoo! category that does not have any sites that match a search term.&amp;nbsp; When this happens, Yahoo! lists Google sites at the top of its results page for that term. Getting a top Google listing for an atypical keyword can net you a Yahoo! listing for that keyword.&lt;/P&gt;<br>

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