Flukeit

It wasn’t until I was browsing through some stats on one of my websites that I realized the power of Google Images.

This is not a heavy traffic site, but on this particular report, ALL of the traffic is from Google Images!

There are a couple of things, in my opinion, that can help use Google Images to help drive traffic to your site.

1. Make sure the filename is relevant and is catchy.

2. Make good use of alt tags.

These two key items will not only help Google find you, it will give the users reasons to keep clicking.

I’ve been noticing a growing trend in some of the forums I frequent. People are renting their signature lines (links) as well as their avatar.

I recently sold my avatar image on Digital point for $8.00 for one month. I guess there’s nothing wrong with it. It’s a good way to advertise, and when enough people have the same avatar it created a bit of a buzz around the forum.

Signature line rentals are also getting popular, although mine aren’t for sale. I think they are too valuable to me to let someone else use.

Obviously, the higher your post count, the more you may be able to charge for rental.

I am beginning to ponder the possibility of soliciting a few rentals from some of my other forums I visit.

I just read a post on map100.com, where the poster explained how Google comes up with Pagerank. Here is what Google has to say about it, and they should know:

PageRank Explained

PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page’s value. In essence, Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B. But, Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives; it also analyzes the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves “important” weigh more heavily and help to make other pages “important.”

Important, high-quality sites receive a higher PageRank, which Google remembers each time it conducts a search. Of course, important pages mean nothing to you if they don’t match your query. So, Google combines PageRank with sophisticated text-matching techniques to find pages that are both important and relevant to your search. Google goes far beyond the number of times a term appears on a page and examines all aspects of the page’s content (and the content of the pages linking to it) to determine if it’s a good match for your query.

In my opinion, this is how it really works in layman’s terms:

1. An inbound link from a website that is similar in nature to your site may offer more “Google Juice”.

2. The higher the page rank of the linking site/page is, the more Google juice you get.

3. Inbound links from “Bad Neighborhoods” may take some of the beloved juice away.

4. Quantity of inbound links is not nearly as important as Quality inbound links.

This, of course is my personal theory. Anyone who claims to know how Google really calculates PR of a website is either mistaken or a Google insider.

Submitting your website to directories in an attempt to gain pagerank and/or traffic can be hazardous to your mailbox. While many directory owners have good intentions, some take it to the next level by spamming your email address.

I strongly suggest using an email address that you only use for such applications. Good ones to use are Yahoo, Hotmail or Gmail adresses because they’re quite disposable.

It might also be worht mentioning that just because a directory “Looks Legit” doesn’t mean they will spam you. I have been spammed by some very reputable directory owners.

I’ve posted some of my own link directories in the sidebar, I assure you that you will not be spammed.

Today I took some time to make sure my directories were on the list provided by info.vilesilencer.com. I found that I hadn’t added all of them in, so I submitted.

The list they provide is an extensive list, downloadable in excel format. Here is the download link.

If you have a directory and want it added, you need to go to the forums and request inclusion.

There are many other lists out there, including one of my own directory listings.