I have worked tirelessly for over a year developing my ecommerce website. I have loads of good, relevant content (I run a writing contest, have lots of recipes, ideas, suggestions, etc) all original content with fresh content added several times a week.
Many sites sell the same items as I do. From the beginning I wanted to make my site different & better. My first step was to hire professional writers to re-write hundreds of manufacturer descriptions. I researched keywords and had the writers use 2 or 3 per description following accepted standards such as a keyword close to the beginning of the first sentence, near the end of the last sentence and then scattered several times throughout the descriptions. I also appropriately use 's, 's. The copy flows very smoothly with good keyword saturation offering the visitor an easy read of about 250 words or so.
The point of all of this is - google has had no problem, almost from the beginning sending people to my site for recipes, ideas, etc but I'm buried in the SERP's for any keyword(s) that are from a person looking for a specific product. I've followed goog's recommendations for making a site "worthy" by providing quality content and I know I have one of the better sites in my "niche". Yet, SERP's have consistently brought up sites that don't follow what goog preaches ( for example: on one of my "most wanted" keywords; a competitors 1 page site that redirects to other domains has been #1 for the last year; also, a dead site with dead links was in the top 3 for about 8 months).
The point of this whole post is.......It seems that goog doesn't follow what it preaches. I'm reaching the point where I'm about to tell disallow google from my site (can this be done?). Why should I allow google to have the benefit of my content when it refuses to acknowledge the rest of my site.
I also tried PPC's with goog and the click fraud was unbelievable. The actual cost per visitor was astronomical.
As my confusion grows, patience with goog is nearing an end. Do any others feel this way or is it just me?
andilinks posted this at 18:46 — 23rd May 2006.
She has: 84 posts
Joined: May 2002
From today's news:
I've posted this here because I also have recently felt this same sting of irony. I have straightened out my situation with Google and am reasonably happy with my current results so my best advice would be to avoid cutting off your nose to spite your face. Google's demise is not worth waiting or hoping for, accept that for now it's their pond and we must swim in it for better or worse.
Interestingly my situation with Google improved after I got very angry with them and threatened to ban googlebot from my site just as you're doing now. See comments by "Andi" here: http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/reinclusion-request-howto/
But I wouldn't recommend that as a strategy, it may have just been a fluke. Best of luck.
Andi
...the Rockies may tumble, Gibralter may crumble... G & I Gershwin, 1937
steve40 posted this at 19:00 — 23rd May 2006.
He has: 495 posts
Joined: May 2005
Don't feel alone I have re-worked my site to bring up things, namely html code to a higher standard. In fact I re-worked the whole appearance of my pages, added some more ( original relevant content ) to try to get a better SERP. This all has resulted in a big 0, my site is still on Christmas Island ( That's page 16 in english )
Last night I reloaded my site map with some new content changes. Google now tells me I have multiple HTML errors, in other words 404's. They are comparing my map to the old cashed one, and not upgrading it. So I have dropped the Google site map, which ended up hurting more than it helped.
Yes you can block Googles robot, from crawling your site. But the problem is, you will loose the traffic that accidentally finds your site from a Google Funk search. ( But I am about ready to do that too. ).
inet_ventures posted this at 04:22 — 25th May 2006.
They have: 28 posts
Joined: Jul 2005
Thanks for the replies Andi & Steve. It's good to know I'm not alone in thinking this way. What totally irks me is that goog seems to place a very high value to "time". My previous mentioned competitor with a 1 page/re-direct web site has been online since 1999.
So the goog rule really is:
Be online for the longest time. We don't care what value (content) your website provides for our customers.
Believe me, I wouldn't even be complaining if there were quality sites at the top of the SERP's. Competition between sites vying for the top would/should raise the bar for everyone.
Enough whining.....back to work.
* Picnic Baskets * Picnic Backpacks * Wine Totes * BBQ Tool Sets
thesocialx posted this at 05:52 — 25th May 2006.
They have: 14 posts
Joined: May 2006
For ranking it isn't about "time" with Google, and it isn't even about the quality of your content or your code. What gets you a high ranking with google is the quality of your linkage both to and from your site. Since time correlates with your integration into the web it seems like time is the factor.
I started my website a month ago, and I haven't even begun to think about search engine ranking yet. I have played around with it a little. Even if I type out my meta tag keyword list word for word I cannot even get close enough to the top of a google search to see with the hubble telescope. The same search on msn puts me smack dab at the top. It's because my linkage is junk.
At only a month old with virtually no traffic I have to take what I can get as far as links are concerned. I have resigned myself to the fact that I won't be able to play with Google until I at least reach puberty!!!
Google doesn't care about us wee folk, even though we are the foundation of their adsense program and largely respsonsible for their $5 billion in revenues. Oh well, that's nature.
~Ryan
http://www.thesocialexperiment.com
inet_ventures posted this at 14:22 — 26th May 2006.
They have: 28 posts
Joined: Jul 2005
Ryan,
I appreciate your comments but I gotta tell ya, I do not agree that the difference between my site and my 1 page competitor has anything to do with links. I ran both on seotoolset and here's the results:
Site 1 of 1: We retained 241 external links to target site http://www.mysite (many PR 5, 6 7, & 8's)
Site 1 of 1: We retained 180 external links to target site http://www.my-competitors (only a couple of 5 & 4's)
Also, I don't have run a link farm. The majority of my links are from people that have linked to my content.
So, I wouldn't hold your breath if you think links will get you ranked well with goog.
* Picnic Baskets * Picnic Backpacks * Wine Totes * BBQ Tool Sets
thesocialx posted this at 17:05 — 26th May 2006.
They have: 14 posts
Joined: May 2006
There is so much more that goes into the equation than the test you ran with that SEOtool. The links incoming from those pages boost your pagerank but the links outgoing from those pages decrease your pagerank.
For example, if you are linked to one page with a rank of 8 but that particular page has 50 external links, then your page ranking is .16 or 0. Now if you are linked to one page with a rank of 8 and you are the only external link on that page, then your page rank is 8.
That is a simple summary of the formula, there is more to it than that, but that is it in a nutshell. No one knows exactly what Google's formula is, but it would not be in Google's best interest to include time in that formula. Either your competitor is using some kind of cloaking tactic to cheat Google and hasn't been caught yet or there are factors that you haven't considered. I am 100% confident that Google is not participating in some kind of conspiracy.
~Ryan
http://www.thesocialexperiment.com
steve40 posted this at 17:20 — 26th May 2006.
He has: 495 posts
Joined: May 2005
Links to high PR sites do help with your PR. Links that are only incoming, in other words that do not require a reciprocal links are best. You can find a few of these, if you are persistent in searching for them. I have a link from a PR 5 site, that did not require a return link.
Other than that your SERP is not altogether based on your PR #. My site is a PR 4, but I rank low in a web search. This all has to do with your competition, and how Google views your site otherwise. Here are a few of Googles comments on the subject.
Make a site with a clear hierarchy and text links. Every page should be reachable from at least one static text link. ( in other words a navigation system on your site that link all pages together, no more than one link apart. )
Offer a site map to your users with links that point to the important parts of your site. If the site map is larger than 100 or so links, you may want to break the site map into separate pages.
Create a useful, information-rich site, and write pages that clearly and accurately describe your content.
Think about the words users would type to find your pages, and make sure that your site actually includes those words within it. ( this is saying do not use keywords, that do not appear in your text )
Try to use text instead of images to display important names, content, or links. The Google crawler doesn't recognize text contained in images.
Make sure that your TITLE and ALT tags are descriptive and accurate.
Check for broken links and correct HTML.
If you decide to use dynamic pages (i.e., the URL contains a "?" character), be aware that not every search engine spider crawls dynamic pages as well as static pages. It helps to keep the parameters short and the number of them few. ( this is a nice way of telling you Google does not index intro pages, nor does it crawl links from it. )
Keep the links on a given page to a reasonable number (fewer than 100).
inet_ventures posted this at 21:28 — 26th May 2006.
They have: 28 posts
Joined: Jul 2005
I appreciate everyone's responses but I'm not sure if everyone is reading the entire post or if I just haven't provided enough info. I have read goog's reccomendations for webmasters and follow ALL of them. Also, I recently had 2 independent SEO experts evaluate my site and they had NO recommendations. I was told by both of them that I'm doing everything that needs to be done. I was surprised since it was a chance for them to make a sale but I was pleased.
However - all the SEO junk aside. Google's #1 reason for existing is to provide their visitors good results for whatever they are searching for. 1 page/re-directing websites is nowhere close to that, not to mention a "dead" website. Hench my frustration(s).
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Um - I never said there was a conspiracy
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Steve, did you read my post? I said:
I have exchanged links with 25 or so relevant sites is all. The majority of them are 1 way links coming in to my site.
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My original point of this post was that goog does not always practice what it preaches and that I'm currently frustrated with goog's lack of consistency.:
* Picnic Baskets * Picnic Backpacks * Wine Totes * BBQ Tool Sets
steve40 posted this at 22:11 — 26th May 2006.
He has: 495 posts
Joined: May 2005
At present Googles searches make no sense. They are having multiple problems, thet we will just have to live with. I don't like it, but I have found nothing I can do about it.
thesocialx posted this at 00:03 — 27th May 2006.
They have: 14 posts
Joined: May 2006
Well, hang in there buddy. Either google will have to get their act together or they will find themselves on the outside looking in. Good luck.
~Ryan
http://www.thesocialexperiment.com