Google made some major changes to their algorithms in November 2003 and started imposing an "over-optimization penalty" on any sites that appeared to be artificially boosting their site's relevancy for targeted keywords.

Many members of the business community were surprised to find their sites dropped from their high ranking in Google's listings. These people had to put a lot of work into revamping and resubmitting their sites in order to get listed again.

And many of the people who were penalized weren't "unscrupulous" site owners! They weren't trying to pull a "fast one" on search engines using frowned-upon techniques such as "keyword stuffing." They were simply trying to be smart marketers -- and some feel they were unfairly punished for it.

You don't want the same thing to happen to you!

So let's have a look at a list of what exactly the search engines are currently looking for when indexing sites -- and what they'll punish you for!

2. The "Dos": Legitimate tricks the SEO masters use to optimize their sites and maintain their high ranking

The search engines don't want to be manipulated by marketers. They want to provide the best unbiased results possible for any given search -- or they'll lose users!

That's why they need to change their algorithms so frequently -- to stay ahead of the tricks people use to get top rankings.

That being said, there are still a lot of legitimate ways you can optimize your site without angering the search engines and causing them to drop you from their list.

Here are some of the best things you can to do ensure your site has a high ranking:

a. Ask relevant sites to link to your site In the past, scoring a high ranking with a search engine was all about positioning your keywords in "prime real estate" positions in your text and site coding. All that has changed, however. These days, links are king!

Search engines place a huge amount of importance on the number of sites that link to yours. But it's not just the quantity of links that matter, it's also the quality. Search engines look at how relevant the links are -- i.e., how much the content of the linking site has in common with the content on your site. The more relevant, the better!

Search engines also look at how "important" the linking site is. What kind of "online presence" does it have? How much traffic does it get?

For example, your site will get a higher ranking if it's linked to by sites such as BBC.com or nationalgeographic.com instead of, say, the personal homepage of your friend's neighbour's kid.

b. Pay attention to keyword inclusion and placement Keywords may no longer be the sole determining factor of a site's ranking, but they're still pretty important. The most useful places to include them are:

In your domain name -- only make sure your keywords are in the root of your URL, not the stem! For example, if your main keyword phrase is "cell phones," try to get a domain name such as "www.cell-phones.com" instead of "www.mobileusa.com/cell-phones.com." Some search engines will actually penalize sites for including key words in the stem of a URL.

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