SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION (SEO) FAQ: February 2008

My site’s ranking in Google search results

How do I add my site to Google's search results?
How can I improve my site's ranking?
How do I change my site's title and description?
How can I tell if my site is included in Google's search results?
How do I change my site's title and description?
I don't see my site in search results, or my site appears lower in results
How do I request reconsideration of my site?
Why should I report paid links to Google?
Sometimes an address appears below some search results. Why?
Will participating in an affiliate program harm my site's rankings?
How does Google calculate the number of results?
Why does my site have a Page Rank of zero?
What's an SEO? Does Google recommend working with companies that offer to make my site Google-friendly?
Will participation in AdWords or AdSense affect my listing in Google's free search results?
Will switching hosting companies or changing my IP address affect my listing in Google?

How do I add my site to Google's search results?

Inclusion in Google's search results is free and easy; you don't even need to submit your site to Google. Google is a fully automated search engine that uses software known as "spiders" to crawl the web on a regular basis and find sites to add to our index. In fact, the vast majority of sites listed in our results aren't manually submitted for inclusion, but found and added automatically when our spiders crawl the web.

To determine whether your site is currently included in Google's index, just perform a search for your site's URL. For example, a search for [ site:www.google.com ] returns the following results: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=site%3Awww.google.com+

Although Google crawls billions of pages, it's inevitable that some sites will be missed. When our spiders miss a site, it's frequently for one of the following reasons:

The site isn't well connected through multiple links to other sites on the web.
The site launched after Google's most recent crawl was completed.
The design of the site makes it difficult for Google to effectively crawl its content.
The site was temporarily unavailable when we tried to crawl it or we received an error when we tried to crawl it. You can use Google webmaster tools to see if we received errors when trying to crawl your site.

Our intent is to represent the content of the internet fairly and accurately. To help make this goal a reality, we offer guidelines as well as tips for building a crawler-friendly site. While there's no guarantee that our spiders will find a particular site, following these guidelines should increase your site's chances of showing up in our search results.

Consider creating and submitting a detailed site map of your pages. Sitemaps are an easy way for you to submit all your URLs to the Google index and get detailed reports about the visibility of your pages on Google. With Sitemaps, you can automatically keep us informed of all of your current pages and any updates you make to those pages. Please note that submitting a Sitemap doesn't guarantee that all pages of your site will be crawled or included in our search results.

How can I improve my site's ranking?

Sites' positions in our search results are determined based on a number of factors designed to provide end-users with helpful, accurate search results. These factors are explained in more detail at http://www.google.com/technology/index.html.

In general, webmasters can improve the rank of their sites by increasing the number of high-quality sites that link to their pages. For more information about improving your site's visibility in the Google search results, we recommend reviewing our webmaster guidelines. They outline core concepts for maintaining a Google-friendly website

How do I change my site's title and description?

Google's creation of sites' titles and descriptions (or "snippets") is completely automated and takes into account both the content of a page as well as references to it that appear on the web.

We use a number of different sources for this information, including descriptive information in the META tag for each page. Where this information isn't available, we may use publicly available information from DMOZ. While accurate meta descriptions can improve clickthrough, they won't impact your ranking within search results. We frequently prefer to display meta descriptions of pages (when available) because it gives users a clear idea of the URL's content. This directs them to good results faster and reduces the click-and-backtrack behavior that frustrates visitors and inflates web traffic metrics.

While we're unable to manually change titles or snippets for individual sites, we're always working to make them as relevant as possible. You can help improve the quality of the snippets displayed for your pages by providing informative meta descriptions for each page.

How to create good meta descriptions
How to prevent search engines from displaying DMOZ data in search results for your site

How to create good meta descriptions

Differentiate the descriptions for different pages. Using identical or similar descriptions on every page of a site isn't very helpful when individual pages appear in the web results. In these cases we're less likely to display the boilerplate text. Wherever possible, create descriptions that accurately describe the specific page. Use site-level descriptions on the main home page or other aggregation pages, and use page-level descriptions everywhere else. If you don't have time to create a description for every single page, try to prioritize your content: At the very least, create a description for the critical URLs like your home page and popular pages.
Include clearly tagged facts in the description. The meta description doesn't just have to be in sentence format; it's also a great place to include structured data about the page. For example, news or blog postings can list the author, date of publication, or byline information. This can give potential visitors very relevant information that might not be displayed in the snippet otherwise. Similarly, product pages might have the key bits of information - price, age, manufacturer - scattered throughout a page. A good meta description can bring all this data together. For example, the following meta description provides detailed information about a book.

META NAME="Description" CONTENT="Author: A.N. Author, Illustrator: P. Picture, Category: Books, Price: $17.99, Length: 784 pages"

In this example, information is clearly tagged and separated.

Programmatically generate descriptions. For some sites, like news media sources, generating an accurate and unique description for each page is easy: since each article is hand-written, it takes minimal effort to also add a one-sentence description. For larger database-driven sites, like product aggregators, hand-written descriptions can be impossible. In the latter case, however, programmatic generation of the descriptions can be appropriate and are encouraged. Good descriptions are human-readable and diverse, as we talked about in the first point above. The page-specific data we mentioned in the second point is a good candidate for programmatic generation. Keep in mind that meta descriptions comprised of long strings of keywords don't give users a clear idea of the page's content, and are less likely to be displayed in place of a regular snippet.
Use quality descriptions. Finally, make sure your descriptions are truly descriptive. Because the meta descriptions aren't displayed in the pages the user sees, it's easy to let this content slide. But high-quality descriptions can be displayed in Google's search results, and can go a long way to improving the quality and quantity of your search traffic.

How to prevent search engines from displaying DMOZ data in search results for your site

One source we use to generate snippets is the Open Directory Project. You can direct us not to use this as a source by adding a meta tag to your pages.

To prevent all search engines (that support the meta tag) from using this information for the page's description, use the following:

META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="NOODP"

To specifically prevent Google from using this information for a page's description, use the following:

META NAME="GOOGLEBOT" CONTENT="NOODP"

If you use the robots meta tag for other directives, you can combine those. For instance:

META NAME="GOOGLEBOT" CONTENT="NOODP, NOFOLLOW"

Note that once you add this meta tag to your pages, it may take some time for changes to your snippets to appear in the index.

If you're concerned about content in your title or snippet, you may want to double-check that this content doesn't appear on your site. If it does, changing it may affect your Google snippet after we next crawl your site. If it doesn't, try searching Google.com for the title or snippet enclosed in quotation marks. This will display pages on the web that refer to your site using this text. If you contact these webmasters to request that they change their information about your site, any changes to their sites will be recognized by our crawler after we next crawl their pages

How can I tell if my site is included in Google's search results?

To check if your site is included in our index, just perform a Google site search for its entire URL. For example, a search for [ site:www.google.com ] returns the following results: http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=site:www.google.com. If your site is displayed as a result when you perform a Google site search for your URL, it's included in our index.

How do I change my site's title and description?

Google's creation of sites' titles and descriptions (or "snippets") is completely automated and takes into account both the content of a page as well as references to it that appear on the web.

How to create good meta descriptions
How to prevent search engines from displaying DMOZ data in search results for your site

How to create good meta descriptions

Differentiate the descriptions for different pages. Using identical or similar descriptions on every page of a site isn't very helpful when individual pages appear in the web results. In these cases we're less likely to display the boilerplate text. Wherever possible, create descriptions that accurately describe the specific page. Use site-level descriptions on the main home page or other aggregation pages, and use page-level descriptions everywhere else. If you don't have time to create a description for every single page, try to prioritize your content: At the very least, create a description for the critical URLs like your home page and popular pages.
Include clearly tagged facts in the description. The meta description doesn't just have to be in sentence format; it's also a great place to include structured data about the page. For example, news or blog postings can list the author, date of publication, or byline information. This can give potential visitors very relevant information that might not be displayed in the snippet otherwise. Similarly, product pages might have the key bits of information - price, age, manufacturer - scattered throughout a page. A good meta description can bring all this data together. For example, the following meta description provides detailed information about a book.

META NAME="Description" CONTENT="Author: A.N. Author, Illustrator: P. Picture, Category: Books, Price: $17.99, Length: 784 pages"

In this example, information is clearly tagged and separated.

Programmatically generate descriptions. For some sites, like news media sources, generating an accurate and unique description for each page is easy: since each article is hand-written, it takes minimal effort to also add a one-sentence description. For larger database-driven sites, like product aggregators, hand-written descriptions can be impossible. In the latter case, however, programmatic generation of the descriptions can be appropriate and are encouraged. Good descriptions are human-readable and diverse, as we talked about in the first point above. The page-specific data we mentioned in the second point is a good candidate for programmatic generation. Keep in mind that meta descriptions comprised of long strings of keywords don't give users a clear idea of the page's content, and are less likely to be displayed in place of a regular snippet.
Use quality descriptions. Finally, make sure your descriptions are truly descriptive. Because the meta descriptions aren't displayed in the pages the user sees, it's easy to let this content slide. But high-quality descriptions can be displayed in Google's search results, and can go a long way to improving the quality and quantity of your search traffic.

How to prevent search engines from displaying DMOZ data in search results for your site

One source we use to generate snippets is the Open Directory Project. You can direct us not to use this as a source by adding a meta tag to your pages.

To prevent all search engines (that support the meta tag) from using this information for the page's description, use the following:

META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="NOODP"

To specifically prevent Google from using this information for a page's description, use the following:

META NAME="GOOGLEBOT" CONTENT="NOODP"

If you use the robots meta tag for other directives, you can combine those. For instance:

META NAME="GOOGLEBOT" CONTENT="NOODP, NOFOLLOW"

Note that once you add this meta tag to your pages, it may take some time for changes to your snippets to appear in the index.

I don't see my site in search results, or my site appears lower in results

Our goal is to return highly relevant results for every query. Search results are returned from our search index. Our search index is constantly evolving as content is added and modified on the web. The changing content, as well as updates to our ranking algorithms, can cause URLs to change position in search results, and possibly, though less likely, be removed.

Occasionally, fluctuation in search results is the result of differences in our data centers. When you perform a Google search, your query is sent to a Google data center in order to retrieve search results. There are numerous data centers, and many factors (such as geographic location and search traffic) determine where a query is sent. Because not all of our data centers are updated simultaneously, it's possible to see slightly different search results depending on which data center handles your query.

We understand that these changes can be confusing. If your site is well-linked from others on the web, it's likely that we'll add it again during our next crawl. While we can't guarantee that any page will consistently appear in our index or appear with a particular rank, our Webmaster Guidelines offer helpful tips for maintaining a crawler-friendly site. Following these recommendations should increase the likelihood that your site will show up consistently in our search results.

If your site isn't appearing in Google search results, or it's performing more poorly than it once did, check out these steps to identify and fix potential causes of the problem.

1. Check your site is in the Google index
2. Make sure Google can find and crawl your site
3. Make sure that Google can index your site
4. Make sure your content is useful and relevant

1. Check your site is in the Google index

Do a site: search

When a webmaster tells us that his or her site has fallen out of our search results, we often find that it's still included. To quickly determine whether your site is still in our index, just perform a Google site search for its entire URL. A search for site:www.google.com, for instance, returns the following results: http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=site:www.google.com Note that you shouldn't include a space between the site: operator and your domain name. The Site Status Wizard lets you check the index status of your site, and also tells you when your home page was last accessed by Google.

If your site is displayed as a result when you perform a Google site search for your URL, then it's included in our index.

However, if your site used to be indexed and no longer is, it may have been removed for violations of our Webmaster Guidelines. Review the guidelines and then, once you've fixed any issues, submit a reconsideration request.

Verify that your site ranks for your domain name

Do a Google search for www.[yourdomain].com. If your site doesn't appear in the results, or if it ranks poorly in the results, this is a sign that your site may be penalized for violations of the webmaster guidelines. If we find certain problems with your site - for example, malware - we'll let you know via the Message Center You should also review your site against the webmaster guidelines and, submit a reconsideration request.

Alert us to your new content

If your site is very new, we may not know about it yet. Tell Google about your site. One way to expedite Google's discovery of new pages is to submit a Sitemap. Even if your site is already in the index, Sitemaps are a great way to tell Google about the pages you consider most important.

2. Make sure Google can find and crawl your site

Crawling is how Googlebot discovers new and updated pages to be added to the Google index. Our crawl process begins with a list of web page URLs, generated from previous crawl processes, and augmented with Sitemap data provided by webmasters. As Googlebot visits of each these websites, it detects links on each page and adds them to its list of pages to crawl. New sites, changes to existing sites, and dead links are noted and used to update the Google index.

Check for crawl errors. The Web crawl errors page in Webmaster Tools provides details about the URLs in your site that we tried to crawl and couldn't access. Review these errors, and fix any you can. The next time Googlebot crawls your site, it will note the changes and use them to update the Google index.
Review your robots.txt file. The Analyze robots.txt tool lets you analyze your robots.txt file to see if you're blocking Googlebot from any URLs or directories on your site.
Make sure that the URLs haven't been blocked with Meta tags.
Review your site structure and make sure that it's easily accessible. Most search engines are text-based. If navigation or links are created using JavaScript, DHTML, images, or Flash files, Googlebot and other spiders may have trouble crawling your site.
If you have recently restructured your site or moved to a new domain, pages that previously performed well may now rank poorly. To avoid this, use 301 redirects ("RedirectPermanent") in your .htaccess file to smartly redirect users, Googlebot, and other spiders. (In Apache, you can do this with an .htaccess file; in IIS, you can do this through the administrative console.) For more information about 301 HTTP redirects, please see http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2616.txt.
Consider creating and submitting a Sitemap. Even if your site is already indexed, Sitemaps are a way to give Google information about your site and the URLs you consider most important. Sitemaps are particularly helpful if your site has dynamic content or other content not easily discoverable by Googlebot, or if your site is new or does not have many links to it.

3. Make sure that Google can index your site

Googlebot processes each of the pages it crawls in order to compile a massive index of all the words it sees and their location on each page. In addition, we process information included in key content tags and attributes, such as title tags and alt attributes. Google can process many types of content. However, while we can process HTML and PDF files, we have a more difficult time understanding (e.g. crawling and indexing) Flash.

Check your site's index stats. These stats show how your site is represented in the Google index.
Review your site's structure. Google, like most search engines, is text-based. This means that Googlebot can't read text included in images or in most Flash files, or pages that are hidden behind JavaScript or require sign-in. Making sure your content is text-based and readable helps make it more accessible to humans and to Googlebot.

4. Make sure your content is useful and relevant

Understand how users are reaching your site by reviewing the Top Search Queries page. The first list shows the Google searches in which your site most often appears. The second list shows the Google searches from which users clicked through to your site. This information is particularly useful because it gives you an insight into what users are searching for (the first list), and what they find compelling enough to click on your site (the second list). For example, your site may often appear in Google searches for espresso gadgets and coffee widgets. If the query coffee widgets doesn't appear in the second list, it could be because it's not clear to users that your site contains information about coffee widgets. In this case, consider revising your content to make it more compelling and relevant. Avoid stuffing your site with keywords, though, because this can cause your site's ranking to suffer, as well as degrading the user experience for your readers.
Understand how Google sees your site. The page shows the keywords and phrases other sites use when they link to yours. Understanding how other people see your site can help you figure out how best to target your audience.
Check the Content Analysis page in Webmaster Tools. Descriptive information in title tags and Meta descriptions will give us good information about the content of your site. In addition, this text can appear in search results pages, and useful, descriptive text is more likely to be clicked on by users.
Tell the world about your site. Incoming links to your site help Google determine your site's relevance to the user's query. Natural links to your site develop as part of the dynamic nature of the web when other sites find your content valuable and think it would be helpful for their visitors

How do I request reconsideration of my site?

If your site has previously violated our webmaster guidelines, and you've made changes to it so that it now meets our guidelines, you can ask Google to reconsider your site for inclusion in the index.

In addition, if you recently purchased a domain that you think may have violated our guidelines before you owned it, you can use the reconsideration request form to let us know that you recently acquired the site and that it now adheres to the guidelines.

To request reconsideration of your site:

Sign in to Google webmaster tools. The webmaster tools Dashboard opens.
Under Tools, click Request reconsideration and follow the steps

Why should I report paid links to Google?

Google and most other search engines use links to determine reputation. A site's ranking in Google search results is partly based on analysis of those sites that link to it. Link-based analysis is an extremely useful way of measuring a site's value, and has greatly improved the quality of web search. Both the quantity and, more importantly, the quality of links count towards this rating.

However, some SEOs and webmasters engage in the practice of buying and selling links that pass PageRank, disregarding the quality of the links, the sources, and the long-term impact it will have on their sites. Buying or selling links that pass PageRank is in violation of Google's webmaster guidelines and can negatively impact a site's ranking in search results.

Not all paid links violate our guidelines. Buying and selling links is a normal part of the economy of the web when done for advertising purposes, and not for manipulation of search results. Links purchased for advertising should be designated as such. This can be done in several ways, such as:

Adding a rel="nofollow" attribute to the a tag
Redirecting the links to an intermediate page that is blocked from search engines with a robots.txt file

Google works hard to ensure that it fully discounts links intended to manipulate search engine results, such excessive link exchanges and purchased links that pass PageRank. If you see a site that is buying or selling links that pass PageRank, let us know.We’ll use your information to improve our algorithmic detection of such links

Sometimes an address appears below some search results. Why?

The address link shown below some sites in our search results (in an expandable area called a Plus Box) is meant to help searchers locate businesses and compare search results. We show the address link for results that are local in nature and for which we have an associated address. If we don't have an address for your business, or we don't think that an address is relevant to your site we won't show it.

If an address for your business's web site doesn't appear in Google search results, please add your business information to our Local Business Center and make sure your address appears in your site in plain text and Google is allowed to crawl your site

Will participating in an affiliate program harm my site's rankings?

Our Webmaster Guidelines advise you to create websites with original content that adds value for users. This is particularly important for sites that participate in affiliate programs. Typically, affiliate websites feature product descriptions that on sites across that affiliate network. As a result, sites featuring mainly content from affiliate networks can suffer in Google's search rankings, because they do not have unique content that differentiates them from other sites on the web.

Google believes that pure affiliate websites do not provide additional value for web users, especially if they are part of a program that distributes its content to several hundred affiliates. Because a search result could return multiple sites, all with the same content, they create a frustrating user experience.

If you participate in an affiliate program, there are a number of steps you can take to help your site stand out and to help improve your rankings.

Affiliate program content should form only a small part of the content of your site.
When selecting an affiliate program, choose a product category appropriate for your intended audience. The more targeted the affiliate program is to your site's content, the more value it will add and the more likely you will be to rank better in Google's search results and make money from the program. For example, a well-maintained site about hiking in the Alps could consider an affiliate partnership with a supplier who sells hiking books rather than office supplies.
Use your website to build community among your users. This will help build a loyal readership, and can also create a source of information on the subject you are writing about. For example, discussion forums, user reviews, and blogs all offer unique content and provide value to users.
Keep your content updated and relevant. Fresh, on-topic information increases the likelihood that your content will be crawled by Googlebot and clicked on by users.

Pure affiliate sites consisting of content that appears in many other places on the web is unlikely to perform well in Google search results and can cause your site to be negatively perceived by search engines. Unique, relevant content provides value to users and distinguishes your site from other affiliates, making it more likely to rank well in Google search result pages

How does Google calculate the number of results?

When you perform a search, the results are often displayed with the information: Results 1 - 10 of about XXXX.

Google's calculation of the total number of search results is an estimate. We understand that a ballpark figure is valuable, and by providing an estimate rather than an exact account, we can return quality search results faster.

In addition, when you click on the next page of search results, the total number of search results can change. In this case, we realize that some of the query results are duplicates, and collapse those duplicates so that you can find the specific result you're looking for more easily. Collapsing the duplicates decreases the estimated number of results, as well as the overall number of results pages.

To expand your results, click the link to the last search results page. At the bottom of the page, click In order to show you the most relevant results, we have omitted some entries... .

If you've created and submitted a Sitemap, you can use the Sitemap details page to see how many of your listed URLs have been crawled and indexed by Google

Why does my site have a PageRank of zero?

A page may be assigned a PageRank of zero for a variety of reasons, such as:

Googlebot hasn't yet crawled this site, or the site has only been developed recently.
There are no or few trusted links to the site.
Google believes the site violates our Webmaster Quality Guidelines.

To learn more about PageRank, please see http://www.google.com/technology/index.html

What's an SEO? Does Google recommend working with companies that offer to make my site Google-friendly?

SEO is an abbreviation for "search engine optimizer." Many SEOs and other agencies and consultants provide useful services for website owners, from writing copy to giving advice on site architecture and helping to find relevant directories to which a site can be submitted. However, a few unethical SEOs have given the industry a black eye through their overly aggressive marketing efforts and their attempts to unfairly manipulate search engine results.

While Google doesn't have relationships with any SEOs and doesn't offer recommendations, we do have a few tips that may help you distinguish between an SEO that will improve your site and one that will only improve your chances of being dropped from search engine results altogether.

Be wary of SEO firms and web consultants or agencies that send you email out of the blue.

Amazingly, we get these spam emails too:

"Dear google.com,
I visited your website and noticed that you are not listed in most of the major search engines and directories..."

Reserve the same skepticism for unsolicited email about search engines as you do for "burn fat at night" diet pills or requests to help transfer funds from deposed dictators.

No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google.

Beware of SEOs that claim to guarantee rankings, allege a "special relationship" with Google, or advertise a "priority submit" to Google. There is no priority submit for Google. In fact, the only way to submit a site to Google directly is through our Add URL page or through the Google Sitemaps program, and you can do this yourself at no cost whatsoever.

Be careful if a company is secretive or won't clearly explain what they intend to do.

Ask for explanations if something is unclear. If an SEO creates deceptive or misleading content on your behalf, such as doorway pages or "throwaway" domains, your site could be removed entirely from Google's index. Ultimately, you are responsible for the actions of any companies you hire, so it's best to be sure you know exactly how they intend to "help" you.

You should never have to link to an SEO.

Avoid SEOs that talk about the power of "free-for-all" links, link popularity schemes, or submitting your site to thousands of search engines. These are typically useless exercises that don't affect your ranking in the results of the major search engines -- at least, not in a way you would likely consider to be positive.

Some SEOs may try to sell you the ability to type keywords directly into the browser address bar.

Most such proposals require users to install extra software, and very few users do so. Evaluate such proposals with extreme care and be skeptical about the self-reported number of users who have downloaded the required applications.

Choose wisely.

While you consider whether to go with an SEO, you may want to do some research on the industry. Google is one way to do that, of course. You might also seek out a few of the cautionary tales that have appeared in the press, including this article on one particularly aggressive SEO: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2002002970_nwbizbriefs12.html. While Google doesn't comment on specific companies, we've encountered firms calling themselves SEOs who follow practices that are clearly beyond the pale of accepted business behavior. Be careful.

Be sure to understand where the money goes.

While Google never sells better ranking in our search results, several other search engines combine pay-per-click or pay-for-inclusion results with their regular web search results. Some SEOs will promise to rank you highly in search engines, but place you in the advertising section rather than in the search results. A few SEOs will even change their bid prices in real time to create the illusion that they "control" other search engines and can place themselves in the slot of their choice. This scam doesn't work with Google because our advertising is clearly labeled and separated from our search results, but be sure to ask any SEO you're considering which fees go toward permanent inclusion and which apply toward temporary advertising.

Talk to many SEOs, and ask other SEOs if they'd recommend the firm you're considering.

References are a good start, but they don't tell the whole story. You should ask how long a company has been in business and how many full time individuals it employs. If you feel pressured or uneasy, go with your gut feeling and play it safe: hold off until you find a firm that you can trust. Ask your SEO firm if it reports every spam abuse that it finds to Google using our spam complaint form at http://www.google.com/contact/spamreport.html. Ethical SEO firms report deceptive sites that violate Google's spam guidelines.

Make sure you're protected legally.

Don't be afraid to request a refund if you're unsatisfied with your SEO's performance. Make sure you have a contract in writing that includes pricing. The contract should also require the SEO to stay within the guidelines recommended by each search engine for site inclusion.

What are the most common abuses a website owner is likely to encounter?

One common scam is the creation of "shadow" domains that funnel users to a site by using deceptive redirects. These shadow domains often will be owned by the SEO who claims to be working on a client's behalf. However, if the relationship sours, the SEO may point the domain to a different site, or even to a competitor's domain. If that happens, the client has paid to develop a competing site owned entirely by the SEO.

Another illicit practice is to place "doorway" pages loaded with keywords on the client's site somewhere. The SEO promises this will make the page more relevant for more queries. This is inherently false since individual pages are rarely relevant for a wide range of keywords. More insidious, however, is that these doorway pages often contain hidden links to the SEO's other clients as well. Such doorway pages drain away the link popularity of a site and route it to the SEO and its other clients, which may include sites with unsavory or illegal content.

What are some other things to look out for?

There are a few warning signs that you may be dealing with a rogue SEO. It's far from a comprehensive list, so if you have any doubts, you should trust your instincts. By all means, feel free to walk away if the SEO:

owns shadow domains
puts links to their other clients on doorway pages
offers to sell keywords in the address bar
doesn't distinguish between actual search results and ads that appear in search results
guarantees ranking, but only on obscure, long keyword phrases you would get anyway
operates with multiple aliases or falsified WHOIS info
gets traffic from "fake" search engines, spyware, or scum ware
has had domains removed from Google's index or is not itself listed in Google

If you feel that you were deceived by an SEO in some way, you may want to report it.

Will participation in AdWords or AdSense affect my listing in Google's free search results?

Google's advertising programs are independent of our search results. Search results display on the left side of our results page; ads appear on the right and in the colored box at the top.

Participation in an advertising program doesn't positively or negatively affect inclusion or ranking in the Google search results. Inclusion and ranking are free services; we don't accept payment to expedite inclusion or improve a site's ranking for particular keywords. To learn more about how Google ranks pages, please visit http://www.google.com/technology/index.html

Will switching hosting companies or changing my IP address affect my listing in Google?

As long as your URL stays the same, your site's listing in Google shouldn't be affected if you switch hosting companies or change your IP address. We recommend migrating a site to a new IP address with the following steps:

1. Bring a copy of your site up at the new IP address.
2. Update your name server to point to the new IP address.
3. Once you see search engine spiders fetch pages from the new IP address (typically within 24-48 hours), it's safe to take down the copy of your site at the old IP address

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