WebProNews

It's not often Google comes right out with highly specific SEO advice. But when it is there, people hang on every ort of minutia. Earlier this week, chief webspam fighter Matt Cutts had them dangling at the WordPress WordCamp as he connected some nuts and bolts.

Not to take away from the dutiful bloggers out there who have kindly relayed a modern kind of Gospel – Loren Baker, Stephan Spencer, Patrick Havens, Stephanie Booth – thanks to all of you.

Key SEO Takeaways from Matt Cutts' Presentation

                     URLs:

        Underscores are now treated as word separators
        File extensions (.htm, .html, .php, .asp, .aspx, .jsp) won't affect rankings
        But avoid .exe
        The number of slashes doesn't matter (for Google)
        Dynamic URLs are treated the same as static
        Question marks are cool, but don't overuse the equals sign (2 or 3 limit)
        Don't go back and tweak old URLs, just keep tips in mind for the future

   
                        Usability:

             Site is crawlable
             Dates of posts are conspicuous
             Double check for mobile browsing
             Full-text RSS for user loyalty
             Standard pings

                     Switching IPs:

            Reduce time-to-live
            Back up site, bring up on new IP
            Watch Googlebot until it indexes new IP
            Take down old site

                    Moving Domains:

301 redirect one subdirectory at a time, testing
 Notify linkers and ask them to update links
 Standardize backlinks, choose www or non-www

                    Other Advice:

             SEO Title Plugin for switching out blog title with post title
             Use Alt attributes with photos, 3-4 relevant words
             Dashes are best, then underscores

            No spaces are worst
            Use a thesaurus
            Use a different stylesheet, not different site for mobile/iPhone