Schewanick Computer Services

AltaVista recently added a section titled " how AltaVista works". This is a very useful
resource and everyone with an interest in obtaining a high ranking on AltaVista should
read it carefully. You can find it at

http://doc.altavista.com/adv_search/ast_haw_index.shtml

Here is the most important new information they provide in this useful guide:

1) Keywords are only counted twice, so it is very important to have the most important
keywords in the places where they get you the most "points". These are the title and
the tags. To find the best keyword strings use the "search term suggestion" at
GOTO.com, at http://goto.com/d/about/advertisers/othertools.jhtml

2) Keywords in the title tag get you the most points, and the start of the title scores
highest.

3) Keywords in the "first lines of text" are also very important. The tag may get
you more points than text.

4) The Metatag "keywords" is not as important to ranking as the first lines of text.
Hence keywords found here could lower your score if they are also in the first lines of
text.

5) Links from other relevant sites are very important, this is called "link popularity".
The more distinct domains the better. Also "good" sites score more highly. So if you
can not explain why a site ranks above you when the keyword is not in their title,
check who links to them ( using +link:sitename.com -host:sitename.com). You will
most likely find lots of links from top sites like Yahoo, MSN, Excite etc., or a very
large number of links from other sites.

6) Rare words score more than common words. To quote AV -

"If someone searches for fruit and pomegranates, pages with the word pomegranates
will appear at the top of the list (a technique known as "inverse document frequency")."

7) AV goes to some lengths to explain that they are not a "database", and they store
all the words on the page in order to preserve "phrases". So if you search for " search
engine placement" you will get sites with the string "search engine placement" listed
first, and not sites with the same words in a different order. For example try a search
for "placement engine search", and compare to the results for "search engine
placement"

8) Pages at a high level rank higher than pages buried deep into the site, so index.htm
ranks highest. It is worth registering more domains and using them as "doorway sites".
Link these sites back to your main site to get extra "link popularity".

Analysis of results for search for mp3 (March 21, 2000.)

Here are the results of a search on mp3 ( MP3 also gave the same results, so
capitalization on AV is becoming less important than it was).

1 http://www.mp3.com/aboutus.html

Title = MP3.com - About MP3.com

2 http://mp3.musichall.cz

PeZ MP3 PagE

3 http://mp3.lycos.com/

Lycos Music: MP3 Search

4 http://webcelerator.org/f/mp3.html

MP3 Audio Finder - brought to you by eAcceleration Corp.

5 http://mp3.box.sk/

MP3.BOX.SK

6 http://ecom99.mp3.com/cgi-bin/shop.cgi

Shopping Cart< itle>

7 http://mp3.boston.com

MP3 music on Boston.com< itle>

8 http://mp3.com

MP3.com: free mp3 downloads online cd jukebox MP3 music greeting
cards< itle>

9 http://www.mp3yes.com

MP3Yes.com, #1 Source for MP3's on the Internet

10 http://www.mp3place.com

The MP3 Place - Music and Information for the Digital Generation< itle>

Observations

Having the keyword in the url or page name is a good idea.

Home pages score much higher

Not sure how "shopping cart" got into the list. Most likely it has a large number of links
from other pages on the mp3.com site, which shows the importance of the web site
name!

Template for top results

URL - include keyword phrase, use the dash for best results

Page name - include keyword phrase if it is not in the url

Page title - include phrase at start of title

Meta description and keywords - include phrase as string

tag - include phrase

Text - include phrase at top of page

Links - include links to sites with the keyword in them

If any "good" sites have links to you, check and make sure AltaVista has the pages
with the links registered. If not, you can register the linking pages to improve your link
popularity using the AltaVista add URL page.

About the Author
Kevin Hickey
724 834 3359
www.masterpromotion.com provides useful free advice and tools to identify the right
keywords and improve your search engine ranking. We also offer consultancy in web
site promotion and marketing