• Do you use categories?
• Do you use tags?
• Do you offer a full text search?

Are you satisfied having three different search result pages inside your blog?

Let's say we have a blog with 300+ articles, 1,000 tags, about 50 categories and some archive pages. And maybe you are linking to your internal full text search results via search links too. All those internal links are good for SEO.

But are three different search result pages a good approach to offer a valuable site search?

I say 'No' because your site and archive pages are transparent but not all (!) pages are mirrored in the results. Only specific parts of your site show up when doing a tag/category/full text search. I am not even talking about the valuable content inside the comments (like here on performancing.com) which normally is not indexed internally at all.

Let's introduce the web 1.0 'fuzzy search' box...

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If you quantify over the entire Internet, Google does a very good job. So let's give them their props before we look at how they can improve. Despite their great successes, there are some places where Google could really improve. Here's a list of seven things I'd like to see them work on.

1. Less False Positives

This is really my biggest gripe with Google right now. Way too many false positives in their filtering algorithms. Quality sites that did no harm are getting caught in the wide net.

2. Faster Re-Checks of Penalized Domains

To solve the first problem, Google might consider building a better algorithm for doing penalty reconsiderations. Especially for sites that have lots of quality indicators and might have gotten just one or a few things wrong.

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It's that time of year when the Internet goes into a virtual slumber. But we here at Performancing wanted to keep things a little spicy (just like that spiced butter rum you're drinking). So we're offering you a trivia question to keep your mind active (and free from complete holiday comatose):

Besides getting an explicit notice in Webmaster Tools, or an email from Matt Cutts, what is the clearest sign that your blog is not in the good graces of Google?

I have one specific answer in mind. It's really obvious and gets at the core of what Google is all about.

Here's a clue: what's the most important stat chart that an SEO can look at?

First person to get my answer gets a free submission in the EatonWeb blog directory. I've told the answer to Ahmed Bilal, so the answer is locked in.

Any guesses? Post your answers in the comment section. First person to answer correctly wins.

Sure, offpage SEO (aka link building) is more important than onpage SEO. However, don't neglect the onpage elements. They're easier to implement. Also, you have total control in onpage SEO whereas in link building, you're hoping that through your efforts other people will link to you.

1. Keywords, keywords, keywords

Use Google's keyword tool and type in some search terms that relate to your blog.

For example, let's pretend you have a Hawaii travel blog. I typed in "hawaii travel". Here are some of the terms I got back:

• hawaii hotels
• hawaii travel guide
• hawaii travel packages
• maui hawaii travel
• adventure travel hawaii
• hawaii honeymoon travel
• hawaii resorts
• honolulu travel
• nonstop travel hawaii

Take those keywords and write posts about them. Keyword research is doing market research. You'll find out what people are searching for and you can write posts to match their search terms.

You'll be using keywords for the rest of tips so do some keyword research before moving on.

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Last week I announced my intentions to be more intentional about my position in the SERPS for 2 word keyphrases.

In particular, I made clear my utter disgrace at having a premier hiphop blog, but ranking in the mid-twenties for the terms "hip hop" and "hip-hop"

I was embarrassed largely because of neglect. I hadn't thought to focus on these terms. But last week I started taking steps to target the front page for those terms.

Here's my progress report.

http://www.google.com/search?q=hip-hop - Google SERPS page 25 -> 10 in 7 days
http://www.google.com/search?q=hip+hop - Goolge SERPS page 27 -> 11 in 7 days

Interestingly, I took stock of my progress on day 4.

http://www.google.com/search?q=hip-hop - Google SERPS page 20-> 10 in 7 days
http://www.google.com/search?q=hip+hop - Goolge SERPS page 24 -> 11 in 7 days

So, in the last 3 days I've moved more than 10 pages up in the SERPS. What could account for this?

Well, I've really only taken 2 simple steps:

1. I made sure that Google would know what my site was about (on page description plus meta description)
2. I talked about my sites on a few of my other blogs, and focused on 2 word anchor text.