SE-optimization Updates

Now let's get back to search engine optimization. Many of us started out with a simple free blog, from Blogspot or a similar site, and then wanted to grow. The next step is to buy your own domain. So how do you switch over your content to the new domain and web host without risking a duplicate content penalty and the lost of all that link juice? Check out the two-part series we ran this week on SEO Chat for the details. If you're just getting ready to do SEO on your site or wondering why it isn't working as well as you think it should the article we ran on Monday may answer your questions. It covers what you need to do to prepare your site for SEO.

Once you've been doing SEO for a while, you may decide that you want to try to grab more than one spot at the top of the SERPs for your keyword. Is that best done with one site or several sites? This week's thread considers the question of whether three sites are better than one. Why not stop by the thread and add your experience?

And while you're checking out our sites and forums, you might enjoy paying a visit to Tutorialized. You'd find tons of content related to website design and development, including more than 120 tutorials on SEO. Learn how to get more traffic, how to recover a fallen ranking in the search engines, how to do keyword research, and much more. If you're feeling generous and want to share your expertise, it's easy to submit your own tutorial.

Our Spotlight, just for readers of our newsletter, ponders what is more important: onsite SEO or offsite SEO. The answer might surprise you. Scroll down to the Spotlight to find out.
. As always, thanks for reading.

Until next time,
SEO Chat Staff

Webmasters continue to see breadcrumbs on Google's result pages. What are breadcrumbs, for which websites does Google display them and how can you get Google to display breadcrumbs for your own website?

What are breadcrumbs?

Breadcrumbs is the name for the hierarchical site navigation links that are often used on web pages. Here's an example: "You are here: Home > Category > Sub category > Page".

Since a few weeks Google displays breadcrumbs for some websites on the search result pages:

Why is it good if Google shows breadcrumbs for your website?

If Google displays breadcrumbs for your website then you basically have more links on Google's result page. Each page in the breadcrumbs line has its own link.

If your web page is listed with breadcrumbs in the results then it is more likely that the searcher will come to the right page on your website and that you will get a sale.

How can you get Google to display breadcrumbs for your website?

If you want Google to display breadcrumbs for your website, you have to use bread crump navigation on your web pages. That means that you must have a set of delimited links on your website that reflects your website hierarchy.

Google's Matt Cutts recently published a video in which he tries to shed some light on the topic. It seems that Google is still testing breadcrumbs on the result pages and that the display of breadcrumbs in the search results will change (just like Google's Sitelinks changed).

Regarding the question which delimiter is best for breadcrumb navigation, Matt remains very vague. For example, links could be delimited with >, hyphens or the » symbol. So far, all examples on Google pages use > as the delimiter so it's probably best to go with that symbol.

Depending on the size of your website, it is a good idea to use breadcrumbs. They make it easier for users to navigate your website and they help users to remember where they are on your website.

Of course, breadcrumbs alone won't get you in Google's search results. You must also make sure that Google finds the right keywords on your website and that your website has enough inbound links.