Website Design Tips - Hypergurl

In the video shown below Matt Cutts, SEO from Google.com answers some FAQ's concerning website architecture and what is considered suitable for Google databases. Here is a quick run down on what Matt has to say for those not lucky enough to have broadband to easily view the video.

Is it ok to merge acquired domains with 301s?

It is ok to merge acquired domains with 301s as long as the content of the new website is related to the content of the last site that owned the domain. For example, it's ok to purchase an already existing domain that was used for a flower website, if the new site your intending it to be used for is also about flowers. However don't purchase a flower domain because it had a good visitor base and use it for example, for a car website.

How to use topics and keywords for site architecture

Matt recommends making a site directory that is broken down into topics. For example, if your site is about clothing, make the directories like so: shoes, hats, shirts, pants etc. This way your keywords end up in your website url, for example, www.yourclothingsite.com/pants/ or www.yourclothingsite.com/shoes/. Use topics that you would expect your visitors to type into a website search box. He also goes on to say that this doesn't necessarily get you brownie points as far as being listed on the first page of Google search but is more efficient from a visitors point of view.

Can you serve Googlebot static HTML pages if your regular ones have too many parameters in their url.

Too many parameters refers to a URL like so, www.whatever.com/page 23456%whatever&itsme.html Too many parameters can make a website un-indexable in Google search. You often see this on dynamically driven sites like shopping carts etc. Matt says it's not good to serve your visitor one webpage and Googlebot another with a shorter url. What your visitors see is also what the Googlebot should see when spidering your website.

To sum up the video, Matt says its good to treat Googlebot like any other visitor to your website. Don't change your site architecture to suit Google and you'll be fine.

To start the Google SEO video above, click the arrow button.