The Google Webmaster Guidelines

Design and Content Guidelines

• Hierarchy and links
• Site map page
• Reasonable amount of links
• Useful and information-rich
• Importance of words
• Text vs Images
• TITLE and ALT tag
• Broken links and correct HTML.
• Dynamic pages

Technical Guidelines

• How a search engine spider sees your site
• Session ID's and cookies
• If-Modified-Since HTTP header
• Robots.txt file
• Advertisements should not affect rankings
• Content management systems

When your Site is ready...

• Submit it to Google
• Submit a Google sitemap from webmaster tools
• Let other sites know you are online

Quality Guidelines

• Make pages for users
• Avoid tricks to improve rankings
• Don't participate in link schemes
• Don't use automated programs to submit pages or check ranking
• Avoid hidden text or hidden links
• Don't use cloaking or sneaky redirects
• Don't send automated queries to Google
• Don't load pages with irrelevant words
• Don't create duplicate content
• Don't create pages that install "badware"
• Avoid "doorway" pages with no original content