Getting high search engine rankings is an exciting accomplishment. It is also important that your web pages are displayed with an accurate and attractive description in the search results. If the description is not appealing to web searchers, then they might not click the link.

Each search engine has their own method of creating the titles and descriptions for the search results. This article will describe how the top 3 search engines, Google, Yahoo! and MSN/Live create their listings.

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We all know that content is king. It is what drives people to our websites. What happens though when a page on your site is not found? I am sure you have seen those ugly error pages, 404 File Not Found. Those are caused by pages that either do not exist, are spelled wrong, have spaces in them, or are simply linked incorrectly.

Websites that still show those error pages are losing visitors and potential sales. You would most most likely not start editing the URL in your address bar to try locating another page on that site. Instead, you would either use your back button, a bookmark, or type a known URL into the address bar. If you do start searching for that page, you are one of the elite who just have to find it.

Chances are real high that once a visitor sees a 404 error page on your site, they will not be back. So what can you do to keep them there?

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Getting to the top of the search engine listings is something that took me a long time to learn. Now that some of my sites are in the top 5 of the major search engines for their various keyword targets, keeping them there takes a little less work, but at least some attention.

Every week I try to make at least some changes to my sites to keep them evolving. I find that a key to preventing stale content and staying on top of the search engines. They do not like stale content any more than website visitors do.

Being on top already, what happened last week both surprised me and gave me a good laugh. A company called my office, saying that I was “next in line to be featured at the top of Google“. What they meant is beyond me, but I did not let him explain. Maybe I should have. See, after that Google Slap I wrote about earlier, my site reappeared back on top where it was before: #2 on Google and #1 everywhere else.

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