Easy To Use Joomla Search Operator Commands
Today I'm going to teach you about search operator commands. These little tricks will help you track your Joomla website SEO progress over time. By using these simple tips and tricks you can figure out what's going on with your website, know if Google is acknowledging your website, and see how Google is actually seeing your website online.
A lot of work goes into designing a website, picking a niche, creating content and promoting it so it achieves search engine visibility. Let's not let your hard work go down the drain. Last month I taught you how to keep your site safe from hackers. Today I'm going to teach you about search operator commands. These little tricks will help you track your SEO progress over time.
Operator #1 - Site:
There are 5 reasons why this command is useful:
- Helps you know if Google is completely acknowledging your website. (You may find out it's not indexing every page on your site)
- Helps you see what Google sees (Are they displaying the proper titles and descriptions?)
- Helps you see how fast Google is indexing your content (Also helps identify if you've been de-indexed or blacklisted)
The titles and descriptions are extremely important. Look at them as if they were your classified ads. You would take your ads seriously, wouldn't you? If you don't choose your own description, Google will create one for you. (It's often not that good looking)
How do I use this operator?
Simply type, site:www.example.com
Operator #2 - Link:
The purpose of this command is to show you all the links that are pointing towards your website. To begin using this commend, simply type: link:www.example.com in your google search bar.
There's one small problem with this command. It's not very accurate. What it does show, however, is a partial list that shows multiple results from the same domain. Google doesn't show all the links because it's proprietary as knowing this information would help you understand their algorithm.
While this list of links isn't accurate, you may use it to see where other competitors are getting their links. I recommend using Open Site Explorer for a more comprehensive list of links. If you have any questions, I've got several articles on my blog about this.
Operator #3 - AllInTitle:
This command is great for seeing all of your competitors and how they optimize their Title tag. The keyword should be in this tag. To perform this command, just simply type: allintitle:keyword
It will show you all the sites that have that keyword in their title tag. I like to use this command to get ideas on how to incorporate my keyword into the tag. I suggest optimizing your title tag so that the keyword appears first and then separating that and the brand name with a pipe symbol. (The line right above the enter button on your keyboard.)
Operator #4 - AllInText:
While we know that Google values links more than the actual content, it's important to know how the competition is optimizing their content for particular keyword phrases of interest.
To use this command, simply enter: allintext:keyword into your browser. It's interesting to know what result ranks the highest while using this command. You should know that the most important on page factor is having the keyword in the Title tag. Other areas of optimization include:
keyword in the opening paragraph of the blog post
keyword in the H1 tag of the page
keyword used no more than 1-2 times in the actual post or page.
By using these little tricks, it will help you track your SEO progress for your Joomla site as well as help you rank better in Google. Let me know if you have any questions in your comments below!
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