Podiatry SEO

DMOZ or ODP (Open Directory Project)

Admin — Sat, 07 May 2011 10:28:08 +0000

Getting backlinks to a website from other sites is an important way to rank higher in the search engines. One way to do this is to submit your website to directories. There are many web directories, but most of them are pretty much worthless. One directory that is worth something is DMOZ or the Open Directory Project (ODP). This lists about 5 million sites and is run by volunteers even though tit is owned by AOL. As a link from DMOZ is widely believed to help a website in a search engine (however this is debatable as to how much help), webmasters are very keen to get listed there and a lot of websites do not get listed. On most webmaster forums, there are regular complaints about DMOZ from webmasters who cannot get listed. However, DMOZ is free and owes no website a listing. It is always worth the time to suggest your website to DMOZ and then wait. You may or may nor eventually get listed. If you do, there may be a small help in the search engine rankings. If you don’t then it probably will not matter much.
These resources may help understand it more:

What is DMOZ? Understanding DMOZ
Why does Google use DMOZ?
How not to get a site listed in DMOZ

Register a Domain Name for Your Site

Admin — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 07:10:03 +0000

The longer you wait, the harder it will be to get the one you want.

We recommend GoDaddy, as they are the biggest domain name register. It does not matter who hosts or builds your website, it can still be pointed at your site from GoDaddy.

World’s Largest Registrar – GoDaddy.com

Google and Geotargeting

Admin — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 01:45:56 +0000

If you are checking how well your site is doing in the search engines as far as ranking so, you need to be aware of a couple of things that the search engines do:

1. They geotarget. This means that the search engine results will vary from town to town and from country to country. This is because the search engines, particularly Google like to make the search results more relevant to a region. If you are checking how you rank in the search results them you need to keep this in mind. Where you check from will affect what you see on the search results page.

2. They personalize. This means that what you see on the search results page is partly influenced by what you have searched for and clicked on previously. If you have searched for you own website and clicked on it before, especially many times, then Google will probably rank your site higher for you. Checking it from another computer may give a different result.

There are tools available to view the search results from different regions. Geotargeting is an important concept when working with the search engines results, especially the ranking of local sites.

Links from Authority Web Sites

Admin — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 08:52:27 +0000

Link building is important for a website to ran well in the search engines. The more links there are to a website, the more highly it is likely to rank in the search engines. However, not all links are created equal and some website pass more what has become known as link juice. The most link juice comes from sites that are known as authority web sites. These sorts of website are sites that many website in a particular niche area link to. If a website in the Podiatry niche is a website that a lot of podiatry related sites link to then they would be considered an authority website. For example within Podiatry a some of the key authority websites would be Podiatry Arena, ePodiatry and Podiatry Today. The links to website from these sorts of authority sites are considered to be very valuable and pass much more link juice than links from other website that pass less link juice.

Alexa Rankings

Admin — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 06:34:14 +0000

Webmasters are always interested in how much traffic a competitors site gets and how they rate relative to a competitor. Trying to determine a competitors traffic is not really possible, so there is a need to rely on other sources. One source that some webmasters look to is the Alexa rankings. Alexa have a toolbar that over a million users have installed and they collect data on the sites they visit to come up with a ordered ranking of the sites based on how much traffic that get from the toolbar users. A number of webmasters use to information to compare their sites with others.

Unfortunately the Alexa Ranking is not of much use. No search engines use it to help them rank sites. Comparing your site to that of your competitors is of not much use for a number of reasons. The users of the toolbar tend to be webmasters interested in the rank of their site or are more technically orientated people. These people are not representative of the general web user, so the Alexa ranking will be biased toward the type of sites that these sorts of people visit. Webmaster sites do well in the Alexa rankings as they are visited often by webmasters with the tool bar installed. The other reason that the toll is not useful as it is so easy to manipulate. If a webmaster wants to improve their Alexa ranking, they just need to install the toolbar and visit the site a number of times a day and it will improve. So if you want to compare your site to another, you do not know your ranking as its been inflated due to you visiting it and you do not know if the webmaster of the other site has the toolbar in their browser or not. There are even services available for a fee to visit your site to inflate the Alexa ranking.

The Alexa ranking is not of much use. It is too easy to manipulate and is calculated from a biased sample.

How to improve the Alexa ranking?

Google’s Link: operator

Admin — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 00:00:53 +0000

Getting backlinks (links from other sites to yours) is a major factor in ranking sites in the search engines. Generally, it is the more, the better. Webmasters do like to know how many sites link to theirs and there are a number of ways to do this. Google do let searchers to use the link: operator to show some links that are pointing to a page. Here is the link operator for Podiatry SEO.

However, from a link building perspective its not particularly useful.

Some facts and observations on the Google link: operator:
1. It only ever shows a relativly smallish random sample of all the links
2. The sample is very random and mixed
3. There is no known criteria other than random for a link being included the sample returned by the operator
4. Google show many more links in its Google Webmaster Tools

Conclusion:
Do not waste your time even looking at the Google link: operator. Its not helpful. Use other link checking tools if you want to know more.

The Issue of Barefoot Running

Admin — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 23:47:16 +0000

This topic continues to rear up and is not without its controversy on podiatry and running forums (see: Barefoot Running Debate on Podiatry Arena). Many claims for the science get debated with the barefoot running community taking research to show that barefoot running is supported by the science when an analysis of the research shows that it does not actually support it (see: Running Barefoot is Bad). None of this actually means that there is anything wrong with barefoot running or that it is bad, it merely means that the research claimed by the barefoot runners as supporting it and widely reported in the media are misreported (see: Barefoot Running and its Interpretation by the Media). Some in the barefoot running community are very fanatical about what they are doing and have fervent beliefs that everyone should be doing and try to impose their views on others (See: The Zealotry of Barefoot Running).

No elite runners run barefoot and you would think that they would do everything that they could to get an edge. Barefoot runners make claims that they get less injuries from running barefoot, but a quick look around barefoot websites shows lots of people seeking advice for injuries, especially ‘top of foot pain’ from barefoot running. There also appears to be some sort of epidemic of stress fractures in the Vibram Five Fingers barefoot running shoe.

Barefoot running drills would probably benefit most runners as it does help use the foot and lower limb in ways that are different to the running shoe gait. This temporary variation in gait should have positive effects. However, what most health professionals object to is just the misue of the research and sceince by some in the barefoot running community (see: Barefoot Running).