Web Site Ranking Tips --> AltaVista

AltaVista is one of the nicest of the major search engines to submit to if you have a small site, however if you have a lot of pages it can be a long drawn out process. AltaVista will index and rank a page in 24 hrs. most of the time. If, however, it is the first page you have submitted to them from your domain it can take up to 5 days for it to show up. Do not panic if your first pages do not show up right away. They say that they will allow up to five pages per day to be submitted from any domain but we have found that if we keep it to one page every 24 hrs. things work a lot better. So start by submitting your index or main page to them and then wait 24 hrs. and submit the next one and so on. Here are a few hints on how to get better rankings on AltaVista.

Key #1
AltaVista does what is called full page indexing. What this means is that it will look at all the text on your page and rank it accordingly. Most major search engines have gone this route. The visiting spider will first look at your title tag and try to figure out what your site is about (so put key words in the title). They will next look at your meta description tag and try to pick out key words from that. Then the spider will look at your meta keywords tag and take these keywords and look for them in the body of your text on the page. It does not, however, give any weight to the meta keyword tag so do not over repeat key words in this tag.

Key #2
Once the spider has finished looking at your Meta tags it will then move on to the text in your html document. Here is where the bulk of your key words and phrases are put. The spider will use a complex set of algorithms to determine what your page is about and what relevancy rating it will give that page, under any given search term. These algorithms are complex and closely guarded secrets. They are changed on a regular basis so it takes someone with an analytical mind and a lot of time to even get a hint at what they are and to keep on top of them. Just try to build each page subject specific and place the keyword or phrase in the text frequently but do not get extreme as this will do more harm than good.

Key #3
AltaVista is also case sensitive. What this means is that if you do a search for "dog food" and then another for "Dog Food" you will get different results. So make sure you use upper and lower case instances of your search term in the body of your text. If you have a frames site make sure you use the NOFRAMES tag and put text in those tags letting the spider know what your site is about. Although AltaVista claims to support frames we have found this is still the best method to get rankings. Do not use a meta tag refresh to redirect your visitors or invisible or tiny text to try and get better rankings as AltaVista considers all the above spamming and will penalize a page because of it.

Key #4
AltaVista also indexes Alt Image tags so make sure you use one of your key words in the alt tag of every image. Once again do not over do this as it is just a way of introducing one more instance of your key word to the spider and can get a page into trouble if over used.

Key #5
Remember nothing beats a well balanced page. Images and flashing is great for visual effects but the spider does not see them no matter how beautiful or well done they are. Do not over use your key words or phrases. Experiment and if you do not have a major amount of time to spend on this then seriously think about hiring a professional to do it.

Click here to go directly to AltaVista submission page.
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