One of these is some sort of expert tech site that you have to pay to access.  But the results always show up high when I’m looking for help.

Google has a cool feature where you can click on an X and then omit the site from that search, and it even remembers for future searches on those words.  But what I really want is to be able to ban a site, or particular kinds of results, from ever showing up in my search.

I’d like to be able to ban by domain name so that I never see search results from a specific domain.  I’d also like to be able to make some search results that include certain keywords ranked less.  A “deprecate” option that lets me deprecate result because it contains a certain phrase would be nice.  I might deprecate the word “baby” and “infant” for example because, unless I’m explicitly searching for “baby” stuff, I really don’t want to see baby clothes show up in my searches.

In addition, an “promote” option would be nice.  Since I frequently search for ubuntu help, for example, I’d rather see ubuntu results higher placed than results for SUSE linux.  Additionally, I might want to promote search results from a certain city I’m not in right now because I visit there a good bit.  At present Google is very aware of my location, but I would like to be able to tell it where I am or where I want to be, rather than it figuring that out from my IP address.

It would be relatively easy to do – I’m just asking to have the search results rearranged a bit and filtered based on my own personal likes and preferences, which I should be able to edit.

Even so, there are some basic steps you should take to make yourself even remotely findable.

Paid and Free Search Engine Listing

First, you need to list your site in DMOZ Open Directory Project.  Many major search engines including Google start their web crawlers here.  (A crawler is a computer program that hops links from page to page and site to site to index the web.)

Second, list in the free Yahoo site listing.

Third, if you’re serious about your business, fork out the fee to list your site in the Yahoo Directory.  Non profits are free.

Fourth, if you are running a business that operates out of a location, add your site to the Bing Local Listing Center and also Google Local Search.  This is really important if you want people to find you with the street navigation on their smartphones.

Web Site Basics for SEO

Make sure you have a title for your web page, and that your web page has brief, cleanly presented text and great photos or graphics.  Avoid needless words, and stay brief.

Use key search words and phrases in your text, especially in your header tags and hyperlink text.  People can’t find your site by searching for it if the words and phrases you want them to find are not actually on your website.

Additional Work for Search Engine Optimization

Generate a search engine site map XML document if you can.

See if you can get some associated businesses or friends to link to your website.