Internet websites & web programming

Indexing and positioning a website

Of course, even the best showroom, the most beautiful, sparkling, designed by the best and most expensive interior designer, does not do any good if nobody sees it. The web is full of wonderful sites that are likely to prove costly in terms of time and money, and nobody can see them. And, therefore, they are useless.

This site is fairly well positioned: using search keywords like "custom software Brescia," or "Computer programming Brescia", and also replacing the name of Brescia with some neighboring cities, the site is listed within the first four or five pages of Google, and in some cases on the first. Of course, this is true for the Italian Version too. What is interesting is that this does not happen by accident: it is the result of some work, I focused on these terms, and got some results.

It is not certain that this is easy, or that it is always possible. There are some companies and consultants claiming they ensure placement of your site on the Google front page, and within a few days, and without changing one iota your site. It is actually possible to get such a result (though it is rather risky to guarantee it). There are many tricks, more or less clean, making it possible. Tricks listed in the directions that Google and other search engines direct to webmasters: and that they strongly suggest not to use.

The positioning of this site has been obtained without tricks and without the external support of other sites: this means that positioning is there, and it will be lasting. There is no way Google will discover any irregularities, some deviations from the rules of behavior that Google itself suggests, because there are not; therefore, it is not possible that this site be regraded, or worse, eresed from the Google index. Because, when a hack is detected, this is what happens to a tricky site.

There are companies ask for monwy, and a lot of ir, to ensure a proper Google rankink. Costs may rise to thousands of dollars a year. How do they do? The simplest way is to direct your site from other sites, hundreds or thousands of external links to your site. Google highly evaluates the popularity of a website: that is, how many other sites refer to the site in question, namely how many other sites have one or more links directed to you. However, if these links come from sites that have little or nothing to do with the subject matter of yours, it is possible, and in the long term it is likely, that Google is noticing, and downgrade your site: which happens suddenly . From one day to another, you simply disappear.

But there's more: the day that you were tired of paying thousands of euros, or dollars, for an artificial support to your site, the one that is providing this support, of course, withdraw it. And in a few days, your site would sink into nowhere.

This is not possible for a site self supporting. Of course, its ranking, and its positioning, can change slightly from day to day. Switching from first page to the second, and then back to the first. But it can not sink to number thousand in one week.

To position a site well, or at least decently, it takes a few precautions that should be studied and developed, and the very infamous keywords matter, perhaps, about than 5%. The site needs to be done in a certain way, it needs to contain informative and original content, written in textual form, avoiding text in images, flash applets, excessive clinet side dynamic content (see how should be a good website), every page should have a title and a good description, and some other things that must be taken into account: and much better if from the design stage of the site.

Finally, it takes patience. As in a diet, long lasting results are those that come gradually with time. It takes patience and professionalism. There are people who give you a site with 100 or 200 euros or dollars, or for free at all. The geek cousin, your child's school teacher, wich, having a PC and a text editor, "knows all about computers and programming," your friend that "she understands all those electronics," and yoyur neighbour that "he's an artist, he will give me a piece of art of a site." A masterpiece website that nobody will ever see.

You can contact these people, every one of them is clever and extremely skilled in his or her own field. Maybe you are going to spend not that much, but it is the same, more or less, as to leave a couple of 100 notes on a sidewalk. Or, you may want not to spend, but to invest. And ask a professional. Your choice.