Heya All

Since so many questions on this forum seem to be asked repeatedly I thought I would settle a few things.

1. What is Page Rank / PR ?? - Page Rank or PR is a number (between 0 and 10) that Google gives your site which relates to the number and quality of inbound links to your site. While it is the case that popular sites generally have a high page rank, it does not work the other way around and this number should not be used as a bases of determining the quality of traffic to a domain.
2. But a high page rank means I have loads of links to my site, so that means I will have loads of traffic, right? - If you have build those links up in the right way, through collaboration with related sites. The more you interact with websites in your area of interest then the more chance you will have of obtaining quality back links to your site. The traffic coming from these sites are far more likely to be interested in buying your product or reading your content than traffic from 10,000+ directories that you have submitted your site to.
3. So I should focus on Page Rank? - NO! On no account should Page Rank be your main focus, by all means use it as a guide but be aware that it tells you nothing about how popular or visible your site is.
4. My site was in the top 5 for "Insert Keywords Here" now it is on the 3rd page. HELP!?!?! - Google has loads of data centers, each one produces different rankings since it is impossible for Google to share data about every site around so many data centers, it is likely that your are simply checking another data center. On the other hand it could mean that Google has updated a data center and your site has fallen behind because it lacks quality, relevance or back links (see 1-3 before you argue about this point). The best you can do is focus on improving your site, and perhaps not rely so heavily on free search engine traffic.
5. How can I rank highly for <Insert Stupidly Competitive Keyword> - Build a quality site, advertise heavily (It's good to have a reasonable marketing budget - at least £100,000). Get people talking about you on blogs, forums, news sites etc. Do what every other company after that spot it doing.
6. What SEO Tips can I use to Rank Highly?? - Many people think SEO is a magic bullet to top rankings. The truth of course is that most SEO techniques are directed at the wrong cause. Instead of asking "How can I rank highly", ask "Why do I want to rank highly". The answer is usually, "I want traffic". There are far better things you can do to attract traffic, I mentioned a few in the last question, now granted, they cost money, but as the saying goes "You gotta spend money to make money".
7. My site is made up of articles taken from other sites, will Google punish me? - Yes: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogsp...e-content.html
8. Can't you give me any help? - Not really. It is all on you. If you build a quality site, advertise, interact with the community surrounding your area, then you will achieve far more than any number of directory submissions will.

That being said, there are a few things you can do to help Google along.

1. Use Google's webmaster tools to keep track of when and what googlebot indexes
2. Use standardised techniques for naming and structuring the pages in your site ( '-' for spaces in URLs, hiding dynamic pages using htaccess etc.)
3. Unique title, meta and heading tags for different pages.
4. Make sure your markup is accessible and semantic!

I will update/amend this has time goes by. Any thoughts/additions?

Jamie

Great guide Jamie, TP added
Now if only those link exchangers can be convinced.....

Great FAQ, covers the main points quite well =) I love the people asking why they don't rank #1 for "money" and such

Good FAQ. I recommend that this is stickied so it will continue to benefit newbies for months to come

Dan

I would add one thread from my forum as well. Search Engine Optimization FAQ's. Its compiled by Stymiee

Why would Jamie dilute what was a great post by adding that largely dated and incorrect garbage that wasn't compiled by "Stymiee" (unless you're referring to Styyiouu) and is a blatant attempt to self-promote?

Originally Posted by ADAM Web Design

Why would Jamie dilute what was a great post by adding that largely dated and incorrect garbage that wasn't compiled by "Stymiee" (unless you're referring to Styyiouu) and is a blatant attempt to self-promote?

Its compiled but John Conde (Username / NickName as stymiee) for Sitepoint.com . Here is the original thread links for your reference

http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/showthread.php?t=182915
http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/showthread.php?t=356031

I have clubbed such thread by him and posted on my forums by his permission.

Thanks for the FAQ.

this is a real good FAQ worth my reading time, thanks Jamie.

I enjoyed reading this. 9/10 Good job!

This is perfect - I just got an email from a client asking if a link-swapper guy was legit - I knew it wasn't but this just made it so concise as to wy it wasn't.