Optimizing Free Sites
 

I was wondering what all the seo guys thoughts on optimizng keywords for free sites. I am assuming it is best to focus on the index page since that is the page is going to have the most inbound links and the highest pr but it also has the recip table with at least 6 outbound links taking you away from your site. Should I focus on the index,main,and gallery pages equally or give one page more focus in regards to keywords.

I vote for focus on all pages equally as far as keywords, but I always put more care and time into the index page.

Thanks for the feedback Lowry.

I just realize I wrote This of course goes for all the woman webmasters also :)

Ideally, you want backlinks to multiple index pages, and then push that juice into a single main.html, which links into gallery 1 and gallery 2. Goal there is to keep your gallery pages in the main index insteaed of the supplemental index. If you manage that and optimize your images, you'll pull Google images traffic. One minor problem is you can't use a framebreaker javascript on those gallery pages. To push more juice into your main page, you need to nofollow your aff links. You can also link to main/gall/gall2 from index.html (stuvel does that with her free sites). More internal links = less PageRank bleed back to the LLs. Another tactic is to not have 200 recips on the index page.

Very interesting...no issues getting listed doing this?

I assume "200" was not a typo and you really didn't mean "20"...20 is what I typically use.

Be careful how you do this. I put gallery links on an index page and instead of 100% acceptance I had about 70% acceptance. Gallery links on the index page should be under the recip table. (mine weren't) Even that won't get you listed at LL's that require the index page link to the main page which links to the gallery pages. Incorrect navigation was the main reason for rejection.

Should you always no follow your affiliate links?

Nah, by "200" I mean a truckload of recips. IMO 20 is too many but your mileage may vary.

No, but if you want your free site pages indexed in Google, not nofollowing aff links can cause problems for two reasons: 1) Google doesn't like to see aff links that pass juice, since they're not editorial 2) Less juice flowing to your free site pages.

Maybe that's a myth. I have a free site that ranks #1 at the moment for it's chosen kw. It does not use no follow tags. |waves|

It's no myth.

I didn't say lack of nofollows cause problems. I said they can.

Ranking proves nothing because if all your competition does exactly what you do they're in the same boat as you are.

Looking at SERPs will tell you very little about SEO.

PageRank is also not the only ranking factor. The primary reason for using nofollow is to get pages to stick in the main index. If you can pull that off without using nofollow, so much the better.

This is just my opinion but I think people read way to deep into what search engines like and dislike. The "nofollow" tag was originally designed to eliminate ranking comment spam. Why would a good algo read a "nofollow" in a zone that was not designed to allow comments? |crazy|

Just use the basics and build a unique page or site. Depending on your kw competition you might have to add some ibl's or a little extra (or sometimes a lot). Nofollow is not going to help in a place where it's use is not intended. That is trying to manipulate the serps. ;)

Major, I agree with your attitude. SEO is not needed if you're happy with your Google rankings. If you're not happy with your rankings, on the other hand, getting inbounds and creating good content is just the tip of the iceberg.

I don't have time for an elaborate reply Major, but here's the short of it:

REL=nofollow has evolved since inception.

Technically, rel=nofollow is a granular META ROBOTS NOFOLLOW, which prevents all links on a page from passing link value. From Google's POV, rel=nofollow is not limited to blog comment spam, though it was introduced to combat it.

Google recommends nofollowing uneditorial links, paid links, advertisement banners, affiliate links, etc. (I don't have the time right now to dig up where Google recommends this).

Google also recommends using nofollow to get more pages indexed by controlling the flow of PageRank.

Exactly. Everyone has their own preference and seo tactics. However, when you use fewer recips, you get fewer incoming links... no? |crazy|

I would also say to no follow your aff links, I don't think it could hurt but probably won't help either. |potleaf|

I'm talking abouit pulling juice from multiple index pages and bombing a single main.html with it. If you only want index.html to rank, it doesn't make much difference what you do.

Ok, I was on a completely different page. I didn't catch the part about you making mirrors of the index and linking to single main page. If I made mirrors then I would probably try that method.

However, from a search engines point of view... Do you think they would approve of this tactic or consider it a way of manipulating pagerank?

Matt Cutts, the head of Google's spam team, has no problem with "sculpting PageRank" internally:

http://groups.google.com/group/Googl...b12da30e8b0de2

Here's another snippet about aff links: if you ask a Googler, he/she'll tell you they are easy as hell to detect and discount:

I think title tags on your links and alt tags are really important.

Hot girls you got there in your avatar Steve.

I think title tags on your links and alt tags are really important.