Question – If I need to target a specific region, is it helpful to have a domain from that country?

Answer – Yes. Both hosting location and domain extension matter and can influence search engine ranking in regional search engines. If you are attempting to target a specific country, you could very well benefit from purchasing a domain with that countries extension and hosting the website on a server that is located in that country. The larger country specific search engines, generally rank local domains higher in the search results.

Question – What is the difference between Google’s aging delay and the so called sandbox?

Answer – Great questions. The aging delay is often labeled and assumed to be the same as Google’s famous sandbox (that may or may not exist). The Google aging delay is not a penalty, it is merely a filter. Google does not feel new websites are necessarily “trustworthy” so while they acknowledge that the new websites exist they don’t generally include them in their search index results. They continue to monitor the new websites over time, paying particular attention to who and how many websites are linking to the new site. Gradually, as the site matures and gains a reasonable amount of links over time, Google will include the site as part of its search results. The sandbox refers to websites that are usually removed from the search index results. The removal is typically a penalty for what Google views as poor behavior as it relates to search engine optimization, spam, or web content.

Question – What does the Can-Spam Act actually mean?

Answer – CAN-SPAM is an acronym for Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act. The CAN-SPAM Act of 2003, came into effect in the United States as law on January 1, 2004. It establishes requirements for those who send commercial email,and spells out penalties for individuals and companies that choose to violate the law. The primary purpose of the act is to restrict the advertising or promoting of a commercial product or service (including content or a website) by defining guidelines.

Besides spelling out the penalties, the CAN-SPAM Act prohibits false or misleading header information. This means that you cannot “spoof” the ‘to’, ‘from’ or routing information, the sender must be accurately reflected.

The CAN-SPAM act also prohibits deceptive subject lines. In other words, the subject must relate to the actual message contents. Email recipients must be provided a method to opt-out of any future email. The opt-out requests must be complied within 10 days. The final large contingent that is stipulated by the CAN-SPAM act is that commercial emails must be identified as advertisements and must include the senders valid postal address.

Question – What is a sticky website and how do I make my website ‘sticky’?

Answer – A sticky website refers to a website that attracts and retains customers. The best way to create a website that will be continually visited and returned to is by producing and creating new content. Give your website’s visitors a reason to come back. Another component to stickiness is a good communication channel. This might mean providing the content via RSS, so visitors are immediately aware of any new information available. It might also mean an opt-in newsletter that is sent on a regularly scheduled basis.

Question – What is the Long Tail, and how do I get one?

Answer – The Long Tail pertains to a relatively simple concept, that capturing all of the the small volume will result in a collectively large volume. With regards to the keyword long tail, the idea is that there are only a few words or phrases that receive a large number of searchers, but there are a huge number of obscure phrases or keywords that receive a small number of searches each month. By capturing top ranking for all of the less popular terms you could in effect receive more traffic than you would if you had top ranking for the popular terms.

Capturing the keyword long tail, is very difficult. It requires massive amounts of unique content. Webmasters have generally found the easiest way to generate unique copy is through user-generated content (ie. forums, blog comments, or user reviews).

Question – What is deep linking? And How do I deep link my website?

Answer – Deep linking refers to links to all levels of a particular website. A website that has an extensive network of quality deep links, shows true value. By having incoming links to multiple webpages at all directory levels, the website is perceived as content rich by search engines. A website that only receives incoming links to the “front page” will not fair as well in search engines because the assumption is that it is not a content rich website.

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Sharon Housley manages marketing for FeedForAll
http://www.feedforall.com software for creating, editing,
publishing RSS feeds and podcasts. In addition Sharon
manages marketing for FeedForDev http://www.feedfordev.com
an RSS component for developers.