Thank you!!... Would you mind answering a couple of questions???...

I thought about emailing you privately and not wasting everybody's time, but oodles of FIBers are interested in SEO, if the last time I brought it up is any indication.

> I was being half serious, even though I didn't realize it at the time,
> when I said maybe it was the wrong animal.

Ooops.

> The other thing is your page is not really optimized that great (IMHO).

Why am I not surprised???

> I think it's too long.

EXACTLY what I wanted to know!!

My next step was going to be splitting it up, but I've hesitated in case that was the wrong choice.

> And there is
> no themed area of the site around Giraffe (or better yet a themed entire
> site called giraffe).

I don't quite understand this.

I know the file naming system is terrible (it's a bugger to manage and makes no sense to visitors), so the first thing I did was change it to:

...com/giraffe/index.shtml

I used a 301 redirect, then I panicked and changed it back.

I want to keep the site consistent, and that would mean eventually 301-redirecting another 425 critters, and I was afraid that could blow me right out of the water with the search engines. (Remember, I have *great* placement on a bunch of exotic creatures, and I can't afford to lose the money they generate.)

QUESTION: What do you think about 301'ing all the 426 mammals eventually?

> Here's what I would do
> 1. Split the page up
> 2. The main page is Giraffe
> 3. The other pages are Giraffe Habitat, Giraffe this, Giraffe that

And change the file names accordingly (as above), right... (NOT using the old animal-numbering system)??

> 6. Each has a pic with an ALT tag to

Lots of confusion here...

Some SEO people say use both an ALT and a TITLE tag with pictures, and I can't seem to make up my mind -- which one or both?

I also read a couple of articles that advocate using TITLE tags with each page element.  I tried that, and it looked ridiculous (talk about stuffing keywords!!), so I took it off -- but I would like to know your opinion.

> 7. Put the Google ad below the H1, ideally below #8.

Below #8?

Sorry, confused... #8 is a menu... I thought you meant a menu for the entire site, like a site map --

but maybe you mean just a little "giraffe" manu across the top, kind of like the category hierarchy is shown on each eBay item???

> Animals
> Animals > Giraffe
> Animals > Giraffe > Habitat
> Animals > Giraffe > Something Else etc.
> Animals > Elephant
> Animals > Elephant > African Elephant
> Animals > Elephant > African Elephant > Habitat
> Animals > Elephant > African Elephant > Something Else etc.
> Animals > Elephant > Indian Elephant > Habitat
> Animals > Elephant > Indian Elephant > Something Else etc.
> Animals > Elephant > Indian Elephant

But only GIRAFFE would be on the giraffe pages, right?

And ELEPHANT on the elephant pages, right??

And ANIMALS would go back to what he called the "Research Desk" where the index of critters lives, right??

QUESTION:  That needs to be redone, I think.  The books look nice (http://www.americazoo.com/goto.htm), but they're of absolutely no value as far as search engines are concerned, am I right?  And for anyone who surfs with graphics turned off... UGH!

> In this example, "Animals" would become the most important page,
> because it's linked from everywhere, "Giraffe" would become the
> most important Giraffe page because it's linked from everywhere in the
> Giraffe section, etc.

Got it!!

Also a blinding headache, but I digress...

THANK YOU AGAIN!!

Luv,