GREAT STUFF!!.... which brings up questions.... please come back.... hellooooooo.....

> One of the sandbox triggers appears to be the sudden large
> increase/decrease in page count at any one time as compared to the average
> change over a period of time.

Which makes sense if they're trying to weed out those awful mechanically-generated sites that say nothing.

> An on site blog is an excellent tool if used correctly. Make sure you
> moderate comments (at least for the first time someone posts) and it's
> also a good idea to use the "rel=nofollow" tag on links left by
> others. This stops your blog being used as a spam machine by comments
> posters.

Blogger makes the "nofollow" tag automatically.

I had a hard time deciding if my blog was better on-site or off-site (thinking it would create incoming links), and I finally decided the new content was more valuable and I would worry get incoming links elsewhere.  Hopefully that was the right choice.

> Not if you are changing pages that may have external links and SERPS
> attached to them. You are doing exactly what you should do.

QUESTION:  On one of the SEO forums, two people said that simply changing the name of my page -- EVEN WITH THE 301 REDIRECT -- would cause that page to get bumped from Google, and it may or may not come back over time.

IS THAT RIGHT?

I wanted to change this silly system:

/goto/index/mammals/###.htm

to a more reasonable system:

/mammals/crittername.shtml

for two reasons:  (1) To make life easier, and (2) Because I read that you should have your keyword in the file name, and it's best as close to the domain name as possible.

I was doing it to HELP my SE placement -- but if what they said about changing file names and using a 301 redirect is true, it would be JUST PLAIN *STUPID* to mess with them -- especially the ones that are in Google's first two pages.

> The change should be handled by
> the server without the surfer even knowing about it.... and without giving
> the search engine bots a hard time.

If the part about losing my rank if I change the name is true, never mind the next question cuz I'm not changing anything:

Over time, if I change 500 creature pages to a new location using 301 redirects, and I check to make sure the 301s are working correctly -- would it do me any harm (SE-wise) have 500 of these 301 redirects living on my site?

> Are you saying that you intend putting hundreds of links to other pages on
> the first page of your site?

No.

What I meant was that I believe I can blow my traffic through the roof if I can get my *other* hundreds of critters on the first two pages of Google, since ALL my traffic now is coming from the few dozen that are already there.

That's why this sudden obsession with SEO.

> If so, although it's recommended that you put
> no more than 100 links on a page, every link out of your page can dilute
> that page's Page Rank.

OMG!

Every link OUT OF YOUR PAGE --

I thought they were talking about no more than 100 links to OTHER SITES...

Are you saying links out of your page to OTHER PAGES ON YOUR *OWN* SITE can also dilute that page's rank??

In that case, if you're going to have "Favorite Giraffe Links" (to other sites) and "Giraffe Fun & Games" (to many different puzzles and printables on your OWN site), it would be better to have a SINGLE LINK that goes to the "Giraffe Fun" page or whatever...

GET RID of all those links even though they're going to your OWN site...

That's the very first time I've ever heard that... THANX!!  (And please tell me if I'm misinterpreting what you said.)

> Here's a couple of sites that are really helpful for Search Engine
> tactics: http://www.webmasterworld.com You will need to register for this
> one.
> http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/ This blog is run by Google's Spam Assassin
> and although it takes a lot of reading between the lines at times, the
> information is priceless.

I'm on my way!

The internet is so frustrating --

You go to forums and ask questions and have NO CLUE if the people there really know anything at all.  Same with articles:  "Hey, this is great stuff!"  Ten minutes later you find out it's pure crapola.

> All the best and welcome to the minefield. LOL.

Thanks for the GREAT information!!

Luv,