June 2004

Search Engine Optimization and the Google Toolbar

The Google Toolbar is a free tool from Google.com. If you haven’t visited Google.com recently you are missing out on several excellent tools. The Google Toolbar has a couple of key features for optimizing your site for search engine results. (Article adapted from  Alec Duncan, (c) LilEngine.com).

PageRank
The toolbar features a small green bar near the center. This is the Google PageRank indicator. PageRank is one of the ways that Google rates your website and plays a role in the position of your site in Google's search results.

Your website ranking is based on several variables, including PageRank value and the number of inbound links. Sites with a higher PageRank generally have better rankings than other sites. A PageRank of 4 or more is reasonable.  The Google Toolbar enables you, at a glance, to view the PageRank of your website as well as your competitors' sites. This feature can aid you in your link-building strategy since links from sites with a higher PageRank will help to raise your site's PageRank.

Cached Version
When Google spiders your site, it records the latest version of your site which can be viewed by using the drop down menu associated with the Google Toolbar Page Info button and selecting "Cached Snapshot of Page". Once you see your "Cached Snapshot" you can determine if Google has updated their database with the new version of your page. If the Googlebot visits your site regularly, the cached version of your site will be updated more frequently than otherwise.

Backward Links
The Toolbar also displays all the web pages that link to your web page, which Google counts towards your PageRank.

Highlighting
You have the option of adding a highlight feature to your Google Toolbar that highlights all instances of your search term on the web page reached from your search. This can help you see how many times your competitors use specific keywords on their pages and you may modify your SEO campaign accordingly.

One other great feature of the Toolbar is an excellent Popup Blocker. In and of itself it is worth the FREE download. Unfortunately there is no version of the Google Toolbar for browsers other than Internet Explorer 5.0 and greater but hopefully they will be adding this in the near future. Learn more and download it at: http://toolbar.google.com/.

-Doug DeVries

Equine-Design.com

doug@equine-design.com