Introduction to Search

1
Introduction to Search

• Bill Cullifer. Exec Director World Organization
  of Webmasters (WOW)
• Webmasters Guild Meeting Albany NY

2
Introduction to Search

• Why should you care about search marketing
• Common search marketing myths
• Challenges and benefits of search marketing
• Search engine basics
• Hiding your web pages from search engines
• Future search workshops
• Open discussion
• WOW update

3
Why Search Marketing?

• It's estimated that more than 350 million English
  language Web searches are conducted every day!
  Search engines are the market makers of the
  Internet.
• They connect consumers/constituents with
  providers at the very moment of consumer interest
  and enable all of us to find exactly what we
  want, when we want it.

4
Common Search Myths

• Myth 1 Web Professionals are Search Experts
• Clearly, its a challenge to be all things to all
  people.
• As professionals we need to stop beating
  ourselves up for our limitations

5
Common Search Myths

• Myth 2 Software Can do it All
• The myth that a piece of software can do it all
  is quite pervasive and is fueled in part by ads
  that promise web site submissions to over a 1000
  search engines.
• Many of these programs are actually worthless and
  could get you labeled as a spammer. Some create
  junk doorway pages, while others submit your site
  to link farms which may actually hurt your search
  engine ranking.

6
Common Search Myths

• Myth 2 Software Can do it All. Continued
• More importantly however, because the 10 leading
  search engines and directories generate 98
  percent of search engine traffic, it's a waste of
  time to focus on the bit players.

7
Common Search Myths

• Myth 2 Software Can do it All. Continued
• The fact of the matter is that it takes a lot of
  time and effort to identify key phrases and
  optimize web site content. Analyzing rankings and
  pouring over web logs is also labor intensive.
  Software can certainly help to automate some
  aspects of the process, but you can't expect any
  application to make the job of search engine
  optimization easy.
• Many search engines now have measures in place to
  prevent automated submissions. Some dynamically
  generate submission codes, while others
  continually change the location, method, and
  variables of their "Add URL" pages, to stay a
  step ahead of the latest submission software.

8
Common Search Myths

• Myth 2 Software Can do it All. Continued
• When it comes to search engine submissions, it's
  good idea to follow the old adage "If you want
  something done right, do it yourself."

9
Common Search Myths

• Myth 3 Optimizing Meta Tags Alone Will
  Guarantee a Top Ranking
• If your idea of search engine optimization is
  tweaking a few meta tags, than you're in for a
  disappointment. The notion that optimizing meta
  tags alone can guarantee your web site top
  placement is a myth. The truth of the matter is
  that meta tags are becoming less and less
  important.
• In fact, many search engines now ignore them
  completely because they invariably contain
  keywords that have nothing to do with the content
  that is actually on a page. In the past, some
  webmasters achieved a high ranking by repeating
  the same keywords over and over in the meta tags,
  but today these tactics just won't wash.
• Sites are actually penalized for this kind of
  spamming.

10
Common Search Myths

• Myth 3 Optimizing Meta Tags Alone Will
  Guarantee a Top Ranking. Continued
• While meta tags may still be useful, they are no
  longer the be all and end all of search engine
  optimization. It doesn't hurt to include them
  however. Keep in mind that in some search
  engines, the meta description shows up in the
  search results page.
• A brief, well-written meta description will give
  web surfers a good idea of what your page is
  about and may even encourage them to click on
  your link.
• In directories such as Yahoo, ODP and LookSmart,
  human editors sometimes use meta descriptions as
  a basis for the directory's description of your
  site.

11
Common Search Myths

• Myth 4 Traffic From Search Engines Isn't All
  It's Cracked Up To Be. Continued
• Many companies/organizations believe that search
  engine optimization is a waste of time and money
  because it doesn't generate sales leads/traffic
  the way traditional marketing does.
• Many government agencies dont see/understand the
  need

12
Common Search Myths

• Myth 4 Traffic From Search Engines Isn't All
  It's Cracked Up To Be. Continued
• Unfortunately, many companies/organizations are
  all too ready to believe it.
• They spend thousands on direct mail, e-mail and
  online advertising campaigns to drive targeted
  traffic to their web sites, but according to a
  study by CyberAtlas Research, 46 of them spend
  less than 1 of their marketing budget on search
  engine optimization this despite the fact that
  sales leads and direct sales from search engine
  traffic is often equal to or better than those of
  more expensive marketing campaigns.

13
Common Search Myths

• Myth 4 Traffic From Search Engines Isn't All
  It's Cracked Up To Be. Continued
• The vast majority of Internet users -- some 85
  -- use search engines to find company and
  government sites.
• These are people actively looking for information
  on products and services, not just those whose
  curiosity has been piqued by an eye-catching
  magazine ad, press release or word of mouth.

14
Common Search Myths

• Myth 5 Search Optimization is Pure Science
• Truth is that its just as much as an art form
  and requires a a well rounded approach.
• Simply put, with an improved understanding of the
  process, a methodical plan, cleanly written code,
  quality links and relevant content you can
  improve the traffic to your clients and agencies
  websites and at the same time improve upon the
  quality of services that you provide to website
  visitors

15
Common Search Myths

• Myth 6 Tricking the Search Engine to gain
  ranking
• There are many methods tried over the years to
  try to get around the loss of the META Tags, or
  to just trick the Search Engine's into raising
  the ranking of your site.
• Examples include Hidden Text There are various
  methods to hide text. Make the text the same
  color as the background, hide it under an image,
  make the size so small its invisible, etc.
  However, Search Engine's are onto most of this,
  and will penalize a website for using it.

16
Common Search Myths

• Myth 6 Tricking the Search Engine to gain
  ranking. Continued
• Keyword flooding This involves using a set of
  keywords on your pages as much as possible.
  However, overuse is seen as spamming by Search
  Engine's, and again, your site will be penalized
  for this technique.
• Submitting to Search Engine's will result in your
  website being listed in a few days.
• This is of course not true. Search Engine spiders
  are quite busy, and have a lot of sites to index,
  not just new sites, but they must occasionally go
  over old sites to make sure they still exist, and
  that their information is up to date. In
  addition, some Search Engine's are
  human-operated, and each link must be checked by
  hand before it is added. It can take several
  weeks for your site to show up on Search
  Engine's. It may not even be listed at all.

17
Common Search Myths

• Myth 7 You don't need to update your site to
  keep your rankings.
• By routine maintenance (removing outdated
  material, fixing broken links, queries, etc.) and
  updating your pages regularly, you are signaling
  the bots and crawlers to come back and re-crawl
  your site for changes to their listings.
• To maintain high standings, you need to keep at
  it and tweak the pages for better results if
  necessary. If neglected, your standings could
  easily slip out of the top rankings as new
  competing sites get indexed and optimized.

18
Common Search Myths

• Myth 8 Organic search is much more powerful
  than paid search.
• Google, the organic results are the more popular
  and often the more powerful set of listings in
  terms of conversion according to some of the
  experts.
• But on other engines fewer people realize the
  difference between whats advertising and whats
  organic.
• On Yahoo!, for example, some of the perceived
  organic results as paid for through their paid
  inclusion program. Research shows that consumers
  increasingly care less whether the listings are
  influence by advertising dollars. What they are
  looking for are relevant and appealing results
  its often easier to make a paid listing look
  more appealing and targeted than a natural
  result. Search is still a non-intrusive media
  paid-search works.

19
Challenges of Implementing Search Marketing
Strategies

• Its confusing and requires constant monitoring
• Its time consuming
• We lack of resources
• Lack of buy in due to the value proposition
  issues

20
Benefits of Search

• Although a few people have given up on obtaining
  top rankings, saying it is just too hard and
  takes too much time, I disagree.
• Search engines are the market makers of the
  Internet. They connect consumers/constituents
  with providers at the very moment of consumer
  interest and enable all of us to find exactly
  what we want, when we want it. They bring great
  efficiency to the Internet and our lives and
  shall exist as long as the network of servers and
  computers we call the Web is around.
• Whether your working for a client that wants to
  be promoted or a government agency that serves
  the public understanding search can improve upon
  the services that you provide.

21
Benefits of Search-Making a Case

• Average Cost Per Lead
• Search 0.45
• E-mail 0.55
• Yellow Pages 1.18
• Banner Ads 2.00
• Direct Mail 9.94

22
Benefits of Search

23
Benefits of Search

• To make a search engine positioning campaign
  worthwhile, however, you must have the right
  information and must execute your plan properly.
• The dynamic nature of the Internet means that
  search engine technology, spidering capabilities,
  ranking criteria, and strategic alliances are all
  changing rapidly.

24
Search Engine Basics

• Where do people search
• Google.com 37.6
• Yahoo.com 30.4
• MSN.com 15.6
• AOL.com 9.2
• Lots of other smaller search companies
• Yahoo and Google collaboration in 2004
• 2004 OneStat

25
Search Engine Basics

• Changing Landscape
• MSN is planning to dump Yahoo! And Dont mess
  with Bill (dontmesswithbill.com)
• Other companies want to compete?!?

26
Search Engine Basics

• Major Players
• Google
• Yahoo!
• The Open Directory Project
• Teoma/Ask Jeeves
• Zeal

27
Search Engines Basics

• The term "search engine" is often used
  generically to describe both crawler-based search
  engines and human-powered directories.
• These two types of search engines gather their
  listings in radically different ways.

28
Search Engine Basics

• The Parts Of A Crawler-Based Search Engine
• Crawler-based search engines have three major
  elements. First is the spider, also called the
  crawler. The spider visits a web page, reads it,
  and then follows links to other pages within the
  site.
• This is what it means when someone refers to a
  site being "spidered" or "crawled." The spider
  returns to the site on a regular basis, such as
  every month or two, to look for changes.

29
Search Engine Basics

• Everything the spider finds goes into the second
  part of the search engine, the index.
• The index, sometimes called the catalog, is like
  a giant book containing a copy of every web page
  that the spider finds.
• If a web page changes, then this book is updated
  with new information.

30
Search Engine Basics

• Sometimes it can take a while for new pages or
  changes that the spider finds to be added to the
  index. Thus, a web page may have been "spidered"
  but not yet "indexed."
• Until it is indexed -- added to the index -- it
  is not available to those searching with the
  search engine.

31
Search Engine Basics

• Search engine software is the third part of a
  search engine.
• This is the program that sifts through the
  millions of pages recorded in the index to find
  matches to a search and rank them in order of
  what it believes is most relevant.

32
Search Engine Basics

• Major Search Engines The Same, But Different
• All crawler-based search engines have the basic
  parts described above, but there are differences
  in how these parts are tuned.
• That is why the same search on different search
  engines often produces different results. (Google
  vs Yahoo example)

33
Search Engine Basics

• Search Indexes or Search Engines
• Predominate type of Search Tools consisting of
  thousands of computers that use software known as
  spiders or bots to grab information on websites.
  Google for example.
• Search Directories
• A categorized collection of information about
  websites. Rather than containing information
  about web pages. The most significant search
  directories are Yahoo! (dir.yahoo.com) and the
  Open Directory Project (www.dmoz.org)

34
Search Engine Basics

• Search site vs. Search system
• Search site is a Web site at which you can search
  through some kind of index or directory of
  websites, or perhaps both an index and directory.
  Google and AOL for example are search sites.
• Search Systems possesses a combination of
  software, hardware, and the people that is used
  to index or categorize websites. Google is a
  search system but AOL is not. AOL for example
  uses Google search

35
Future Workshops

• This two-day workshop will provide attendees with
  the knowledge and skill to effectively search
  and be searched on the Web.
• Searchers will learn the key elements of
  formulating and optimizing their search requests.
  Web service and content providers will learn what
  they must do in order to achieve high search
  rankings and increase the probability of being
  found by the searchers.

36
Hiding your web pages from search engines
(Courtesy of The University of Melbourne)

• Background
• Search engines and some other organizations use
  'robot' or 'web crawler' software to find and
  index web pages and their contents. Sometimes you
  may want to hide a web page from a search engine,
  for example if you are testing a new site before
  launching it. There are several ways to achieve
  this.
• Hiding your web pages
• To achieve the highest level of secrecy for a
  digital file, simply do not put it on a web
  server or Internet-connected machine. This is
  clearly impractical for documents that you want
  to share with others.
• Several tools can restrict access to shared
  documents
• server settings for search engine access (the
  robots.txt file)
• the 'robots' meta tag
• server settings based on the user's IP address
• login and authentication

37
Hiding your web pages from search engines

• robots.txt file
• If you have your own web server, you can create a
  robots.txt file that tells search engines which
  pages on the server they should ignore. See the
  Web Server Administrator's Robots Exclusion
  Protocol Guide for information about how to do
  this.
• The robots exclusion protocol is supported by
  many of the bigger search engines, but not all of
  them. For information about a particular search
  engine's attitude to the protocol, look in the
  company's privacy policy.
• robots meta tag
• The tag can help hide your
  web page from web crawlers, spiders and robots.
• For complete protection, use this tag  name"robots" content"none"

38
Hiding your web pages from search engines

• For more information visit Using this metadata
  tag...  ..
  .will tell search engines not to index this
  particular page, but some may still follow links
  from this page to other pages and index those
  secondary pages.
• Using this tag...  content"nofollow"...tells the search engines
  not to follow links from this particular page,
  but they may still index the current page.
• http//www.unimelb.edu.au/webcentre/topics/hide.ht
  ml

39
Hiding your web pages from search engines

• EXTRA TIP Make sure there are no links from
  other web pages to the page you want to hide.
  Search engine spiders/robots can (and will)
  follow those links to your page. Remember also
  that messages sent to discussion lists (for
  example, web-forum_at_unimelb) should not include
  the secret URL, because these discussion lists
  are often archived on a web site.

40
Hiding your web pages from search engines

• Related Resources
• All these articles were current on 11 September
  2002
• Web Server Administrator's Robots Exclusion
  Protocol Guide
• Web Developers' Virtual Library entry on robots
  exclusion
• SearchTools.com's article on Search indexing
  robots and robots.txt
• Holovaty.com's weblog item on user agents and
  robots
• WannaBrowser.com tells you what user agent
  information your browser etc is providing to web
  servers

41
Future workshops

• Specific topics will include
• Searching
• How to select terms and search (more)
  effectively
• How different search engines interpret queries
• How to meaningfully interpret search results
• How to invoke search operators (aka advanced
  operators), even undocumented ones
• How to evaluate search engines and search
  aggregators
• How to recognize the differences between
  local/internal searches and global/Internet
  searches.

42
Future workshops

• Specific topics will include
• Being Searched
• How to appeal to and influence search engine
  indexers
• How to avoid search engine indexer "turn-offs"
• How to focus and control Web site indexing
• How to circumvent search engine indexing through
  site submission services
• How search engine paid and unpaid
  placement/relevance works
• How to implement "search-ability" as a content
  management issue.

43
WOW Update

• National Articulation Initiative
• Participation at the WWW Conference
• Department of Labor Survey

44
Google Search Myths

• Myth 1 The Higher Your Google PageRank (PR),
  the Higher You'll be in the Search Results
  Listing
• This myth is frequent, and is the source of many
  complaints. People often notice that a site with
  a lower PageRank than theirs is listed above
  them, and get upset. While pages with a higher
  PageRank do tend to rank better, it is perfectly
  normal for a site to appear higher in the results
  listings even though it has a lower PageRank than
  competing pages.
• To explain this concept without going into too
  much technical detail, it is best to think of
  PageRank as being comprised of two different
  values. One value, which we'll call "General
  PageRank" is nothing more than the weighting
  given to the links on your page. This is also the
  value shown in the Google Toolbar. This value is
  used to calculate the weighting of the links
  leaving your page, not your search position.
• The other value we'll call "Specific PageRank."
  You see, if PageRank equated to search engine
  results rank then Yahoo, the site with the
  highest PR, would be listed 1 for every search
  result. Obviously, that wouldn't be useful, so
  what Google does is examine the context of your
  incoming links, and only those links that relate
  to the specific keyword being searched on will
  help you achieve a higher ranking for that
  keyword. It's very possible for a site with a
  lower PageRank to in fact have more on-topic
  incoming links than a site with a higher
  PageRank, in which case the site with a lower
  PageRank will be listed above its competitor in
  the search results for that term.
• PageRank aside, there are also other factors that
  contribute Google search results -- though
  PageRank remains the dominant one.

45
Google Search Myths

• Myth 2 The Google Toolbar will List Your Actual
  PageRank
• When Google created their toolbar it was a boon
  for many Webmasters as this was the first time we
  got to see any value related to our PageRank.
  However, the toolbar has also caused some
  confusion.
• The toolbar does not show your actual PageRank,
  only an approximation of it. It gives you an
  integer rank on a scale from 1-10. We do not know
  exactly what the various integers correspond to,
  but we're sure that their curve is similar to an
  exponential curve with each new "plateau" being
  harder to reach than the last. I have personally
  done some research into this, and so far the
  results point to an exponential base of 4. So a
  PR of 6 is 4 times as difficult to attain as a PR
  of 5.
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• The exponential base is important because it
  illustrates how broad a range of pages can be
  assigned a particular PR value. The difference
  between a high PR of 6, and a low PR of 6, could
  be hundreds or thousands of links. So if your PR
  as reported by the toolbar increases or drops,
  it's important to remember that it could be the
  result of a small change, or a large change.
  Additionally, it's possible to lose or gain links
  and see no change in your reported PageRank.
• The other issue with the toolbar has to do with
  the fact that sometimes the PageRank it displays
  is only a guess. People will often notice pages
  on Geocities or another free hosting provider
  having a high PageRank. This is because when
  Google hasn't spidered a page, but has spidered
  the root domain, the toolbar will guess a
  PageRank based on the value of the root domain.
  Therefor it's common to see pages on Geocities
  with a PR of 6 or 7. The PageRank does not equate
  in any way to a high Google listing, in fact in
  this case it indicates the opposite that the
  page isn't even in Google. Once Google spiders
  the page, it will be assigned a more appropriate
  (and usually lower) PageRank.

46
Google Search Myths

• Myth 3 PageRank is a Value Based on the Number
  of Incoming Links to Your Site
• This myth is a frequent source of incorrect
  assumptions about Google. People will often see
  that a site with fewer incoming links than their
  own site has a higher PageRank, and assume that
  PageRank is not based on incoming links.
• The fact is that PageRank is based on incoming
  links, but not just on the number of them.
  Instead PageRank is based on the value of your
  incoming links. To find the value of an incoming
  link look at the PR of the source page, and
  divide it by the number of links on that page.
  It's very possible to get a PR of 6 or 7 from
  only a handful of incoming links if your links
  are "weighty" enough.
• Also remember that for PageRank calculations
  every page is an island. Google does not
  calculate PageRank on a site-wide basis -- so
  internal links between your pages do count. This
  is very important, as instituting a proper
  structure for your internal links can drastically
  improve your rankings.

47
Google Search Myths

• Myth 4 Searching for Incoming Links on Google
  Using "link" will Show you all Your Backwards
  Links
• Similar to Myth 3, people will sometimes look
  for backwards links to a site on Google and fine
  none, but if the site does have a PR listed and
  it is in Google's cache, they know that the
  toolbar isn't just guessing.
• The reason for this is that Google does not list
  all the links that it knows about, only those
  that contribute above a certain amount of
  PageRank. This is especially evident in a brand
  new site. By default, all pages in Google have a
  minimum PR. So even a page without any incoming
  links has a PR value, albeit a small one. If you
  have a brand new site with 20 or 30 pages, all of
  which Google has spidered, but you have no
  incoming links from other sites, then your pages
  will still have a PageRank resulting from these
  internal links. As your home page is likely
  linked to from every page on your site, it might
  even get a PageRank of up to 1 or 2 from all
  these little boosts. However, in this situation
  searching for incoming links will likely yield 0
  results.
• You can also see this happening on pages that
  have been around for awhile. For instance, this
  page has 0 incoming links listed in Google, yet
  it has a PageRank of 3. We can see that Google
  has spidered it by checking its cache, so the
  PageRank is not a guess. We also know that Google
  has spidered this page, again by checking its
  cache. Therefore, we can be sure that Google
  knows of at least 1 link to the page in question,
  both by its listed PR, and the fact that Google
  has spidered a page that links to it.
• However, if you look at the DMOZ.org page with
  the Google Toolbar installed, you'll notice the
  page has a PR of 0, which is very low.
  Furthermore, if you count the number of links on
  the page, you'll notice it has over 20. So you're
  dividing a very low PR among over 20 links. Thus
  each link carries very little weight, so Google
  doesn't list these links when you search for
  them. However, Google does count the links, which
  is why the page in question has a PR listed.
• It's very important to remember how Google lists
  incoming links. Often, people see their number of
  incoming links drop, and they think they have
  lost those links. In reality, the linking page
  could have lost some weight and consequentially,
  the links might have dropped below the value
  threshold that's required in order for links to
  be listed. Or the linking page could have added
  more links, causing each link's share of the
  weight to be lower, and again causing the link to
  drop below the value threshold. In either case
  the link is still counted, it just isn't listed.
• Why does Google do this? Perhaps the answer has
  to do with technical limitations. If the average
  number of links per page is 20 then Google would
  have to deal with over 60 billion links, which
  might create an index that was too large to be
  publicly searchable.

48
Google Search Myths

• Myth 5 Being Listed in the Open Directory
  Project Gives you a Special PageRank Bonus
• Google uses Open Directory Project (DMOZ.org), to
  power its directory. Coupling that fact with the
  observation that sites listed in DMOZ often get
  decent and inexplicable PageRank boosts, has lead
  many to conclude that Google gives a special
  bonus to sites listed in DMOZ. This is simply not
  true.
• The only bonus gained from being in DMOZ is the
  same bonus a site would achieve from being linked
  to by any other site. However, DMOZ data is used
  by hundreds of sites. The biggest user of DMOZ
  data is Google, but it is also used by thousands
  of other sites. The links from these sites are
  often too weak to be listed in a link search, but
  Google does crawl them, and the links do count.
  So if you're listed in DMOZ, you're actually
  gaining the benefits of hundreds of
  lightly-weighted incoming links, and when you add
  all those up, the total can amount to a decent
  PageRank boost.
• There are two other benefits you can gain by
  being listed in DMOZ. For one, your directory
  description will appear with Google search result
  listings, which may increase the likelihood of
  someone clicking on your link. The other benefit
  is that, as Google does crawl DMOZ, being listed
  there will ensure that you're also listed in
  Google. However, as it's so easy to be listed in
  Google, this benefit is slight at best.

49
Google Search Myths

• Myth 6 Being Listed in Yahoo! Gives you a
  Special PageRank Bonus
• This myth evolved much in the same was as Myth
  5. Google has been partnered with Yahoo! for a
  number of years by providing secondary search
  results, and just recently (Fall, 2002), Yahoo!
  started using Google to provide primary search
  results.
• Because Yahoo! uses Google, many have assumed
  that Google also uses Yahoo!, which is not the
  case. The only PageRank you will gain from being
  listed in Yahoo! is the same as the PR you'd gain
  from any other site of equivalent weight.
  However, some people achieve a larger-than-normal
  boost from their listing in Yahoo!, which again
  leads to this incorrect conclusion.
• The fact is that being listed in Yahoo!'s main
  directory will often get you into regional
  directories, so, much like DMOZ, one Yahoo!
  listing can result in multiple links. These links
  are often weak in nature so they may not show up
  in a link search, but they are there -- and
  Google knows about them.
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• Additionally, once you're listed in any search
  engine or directory you have an increased chance
  of someone finding your site, liking it, and
  adding a link to it from their own site. As such,
  being listed in Yahoo! could result in you
  receiving links from elsewhere -- links whose
  weight is too low to list, but which do
  contribute to your PageRank.

50
Google Search Myths

• Myth 7 Google Uses Meta Tags to Rank Your Site
• This myth is left over from the days when most
  search engines used meta tags. However, Google
  has never used them. This fact may be contested
  by some people, so I wouldn't post it without
  proof.
• To prove to yourself that Google doesn't use meta
  tags, put words into your meta tags that do not
  appear elsewhere on your page. Then, using an
  advanced search, search for those words while
  limiting the results to your domain only. You can
  try this on any search engine -- and if results
  appear, you'll know that engine uses meta tags.
  If no results are displayed, then you know meta
  tags are not used. It is important, though, that
  the words only appear in your meta tags and no
  where else on your page.
• Google can sometimes use the meta description tag
  to create an abstract for your site, so it may be
  useful to you if your home page is primarily
  composed of graphics. However, do not expect it
  to increase your rank.

51
Google Search Myths

• Myth 8 Google Will Not Index Dynamic Pages
• Some search engines have, in the past, had
  problems with dynamic pages, that is, pages that
  use a query string. This was not due to any
  technical limitation, but rather, because search
  engines knew that it was possible to create a set
  of an infinite amount of dynamic pages, or they
  could create an endless loop. In either case, the
  search engines did not want their crawlers to be
  caught spidering endless numbers of dynamically
  generated pages.
• Google is a newer search engine, and has never
  had a problem with query strings. However, some
  dynamic pages can still throw Google for a loop.
• Some shopping carts or forums store session
  information in the URL when cookies are unable to
  be written. This effectively kills search engines
  like Google because search engines key their
  indexes with URLs, and when you put session
  information in the URL, that URL will change
  constantly. This is especially true as Google
  uses multiple IP addresses to crawl the Web, so
  each crawler will see a different URL on your
  site, which basically results in those pages not
  being listed. It is important that if you use
  such software, you amend it so that if cookies
  are unable to be written, the software simply
  does not track session information.
• So, you don't need to use search engine-friendly
  URLs to be listed in Google. However, these URLs
  do have other benefits, such as hiding what
  server side technology you use (so that you may
  change it seamlessly later), and they are more
  people-friendly. Additionally, while Google can
  spider dynamic pages, it may limit the amount of
  dynamic pages it spiders from one particular
  site. Your best bet for a good ranking is to use
  search-engine friendly URLs.

52
Google Search Myths

• Myth 9 Google Will Not List Your Site, or
  Penalize it, if you use Popups
• This is a relatively minor myth but it still pops
  up (pun intended) every once in a while. Google
  has an advertising program called Adwords, and
  one of their policies is that they do not allow
  sites that use popup windows to participate in
  this program.
• This policy only exists for the Google Adwords
  program, but either through hearsay, or people
  hearing that Google has a policy against popups
  and incorrectly assuming that this includes
  Google's main index, this myth has flourished.
  The suggestion that you won't be listed in Google
  if you use popups is simply not true many sites
  that use popups, including SitePoint, are well
  ranked on Google. In fact, it is doubtful that
  Google even understands all the Javascript that
  can create a popup.

53
Google Search Myths

• Myth 10 Google will Penalize you if You're
  Linked to by a Link Farm
• Google has policies against the use of artificial
  means to increase your PageRank, which
  specifically include things like joining a link
  farm. There are sites or services out there that
  set up automatic link exchanges to increase your
  PageRank. The links are usually hidden from
  people through the use of CSS, and either making
  the text the same color as the background, or by
  putting the links in an invisible layer. As
  search engines don't render CSS, they will see
  the hidden links and thus count them when
  calculating your link popularity.
• However, despite all this, Google will not
  penalize you for being linked to by a link farm.
  After all, you have no control over which sites
  links to you, so it wouldn't be fair to penalize
  site owners on this basis. Additionally, link
  farms often have low PageRanks and a high number
  of outgoing links, so each link will contribute
  only a very small amount to your total PageRank
  -- and thus this method of abuse is not very
  effective.
• Even so, Google can punish you if you link to a
  linkfarm from your site, or otherwise put hidden
  links in your pages. So the simple truth is that
  you can be punished for what you do to your own
  site, but not for getting linked by another site.