dropped by Google

[caveman]

Is it possible for any of the web pro world team to enlighten me as to why my website is being ignored by Google and yahoo to a large extent.
I have an online art gallery site at www.johnstoa.com with about 80 pages. I had a google rank of 5 on the home page and 4 on all othwers, but now it has slipped to 4 and 3 respectfully, but worse still my site visits have dropped from a daily average of about 486 to 177.
Google used to be my best referrer, but now they give me very little. I pay for Yahoo but get very little from them also.
I have optimised every page on my site and update it frequently. I wonder if I am using too many keywords?
I also changed my url from a .co.uk to a .com and wondered if that could adversely affect me.
I seek good reciprocal relevant links, but wonder if I have picked up some less desirable link farm types.
I do not know the difference between a link farm and a site with a lot of links.
Another possible problem area is where I update images and replace old ones. Search engines cache these then when someone finds the thumbnail and clicks on it to enlarge they get a 404 error. Would Google take a dim view of this?
My knowledge of IT is very basic being a silver surfer newbie, so cant find out where i am going wrong.
Can anyone help, please?

[adore]

Originally Posted by caveman

I seek good reciprocal relevant links, but wonder if I have picked up some less desirable link farm types.

No inbound links can make any harm to you.

I think your drops might be connected with the latest update and using two domains at one time (duplicate content filter).
Try to set up 301 redirect from .co.uk domain to .com in order to avoid duplicate content and transfer all the profits (like PR and value of anchor text) to the main domain (.com).
These changes will take effect with the next update - it can last 3-5 weeks as the last update was few days ago.

In the meantime - try changing all the links pointing to .co.uk to .com links and still gather more backlinks with a proper, keyword-reach anchor text.

[caveman]

Originally Posted by adore

No inbound links can make any harm to you.

I think your drops might be connected with the latest update and using two domains at one time (duplicate content filter).
Try to set up 301 redirect from .co.uk domain to .com in order to avoid duplicate content and transfer all the profits (like PR and value of anchor text) to the main domain (.com).
These changes will take effect with the next update - it can last 3-5 weeks as the last update was few days ago.

In the meantime - try changing all the links pointing to .co.uk to .com links and still gather more backlinks with a proper, keyword-reach anchor text.

Thanks for the info Adore,
I arranged a redirect last january for my new .com address and it is only in the last couple of months that google has penalised my site.

I will have a look at where my links are pointing to and continue to seek good reciprocal links, ( assuming that is what you mean by backlinks)

[adore]

Originally Posted by caveman

I will have a look at where my links are pointing to and continue to seek good reciprocal links, ( assuming that is what you mean by backlinks)

Precisely speaking, backlinks are links pointing to your site (without reciprocation). They are probably better than reciprocal ones however no matter they are reciprocal or backlinks, they are always profitable for you (provided you don't link to banned sites).

[caveman]

Thanks for clearing up on "backlinks", I am a wee bit wiser, but do you have any advice on how I get them without reciprocation?
When I do a link check the values I get from Google are low and do not make sense as I have a lot of inbound links from other art sites.

[ChrisBowd]

Caveman,

When Google finds multiple sites with similar or identical (Heaven forbid!) content it lists whichever it feels (maybe based on URL/domain-name) it computes is senior and the rest will be listed in its "similar pages" link that appears next to such results. If Google penalized multiple identical sites then I could wipe out Microsoft's site in a day just by putting up 100 replica's on free sites.

My guess is that Google is discounting the relevance of your site because it thinks you are hiding text.

You have a very nice looking site IF you browse it with images turned 'on', take a look at it with images turned off though and you see a blur of #FFFFCC (ultra light yellow) text against an #FFFFFF (white!) background. My experience tells me that Googlebot possibly (because only 'they' know for certain) examines a page with graphics turned off and compares text color with the background color. That means that for your page it is comparing the foreground #FFFFCC text with the #FFFFFF background and penalizing because of the low contrast it computes.

The worse problem is that your text links are also very light blue and for the same reason Googlebot may assume they are spammed and ignore them.

To test I searched Google for "He started working life as a gardener in Dundee" which is on your home page and the only result returned was in fact your home page. I then repeated the search for "a winter landscape picture of Perth and Dundee" which apppears on your "Fine Arts Prints Scottish Towns" page and Google returned no results.

If my theory is correct then the fix is simple, simply give each page (the <body> tag) a background color of #000033. You will see no difference visually because the background image will override the background color when images are turned on, but Googlebot will see the background color, make its crude comparison and hopefully you will see some an improvement.

Because I like your work I am adding a link to your site from PR5 I use in my signature which gets indexed literally every 2 days (you do not need to backlink). That will get you indexed maybe on Sunday because Googlebot just crawled the site a few hours ago.

You need to start watching your rankings like a hawk and fine-tuning and that means you want Googlebot on your site frequently. Though many on this forum disagree, I strongly advise you to add the following line of ciode after your <meta description> tag:
<meta name="revisit-after" content="2 Days">.

SEOs say the refresh tag is ignored - I say its not. I have a new site (www.CADAZZ.com) which was registered last weekend, was first hosted 3 days ago and is in the Google index today (because I inadvertently linked to it one of my sites!).

Best of luck,

[ChrisBowd]

it's up on http://www.venturejapan.com/japan-business.htm

[greeneagle]

Caveman,

Let me start by saying I really like your Site and your artwork. VERY NICE - I'll look in more detail when I have time, but I found 2 things that you may want to be aware of:

Although you have an HTML Page Title, you don't have a Page Title metatag. I believe that GOOGLE has added emphasis to the importance of this tag recently. See; http://www.webproworld.com/viewtopic.php?t=20920

2) Also your SiteMap, although very well done, exceeds the maximum number of links recommended by GOOGLE on their “Webmasters Resources” pages by 20%.

http://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html
“Keep the links on a given page to a reasonable number (fewer than 100).”

This may require that you split up the sitemap into, “types of art” or other sub categories. This may also afford you the space and opportunity to use keywords in brief descriptions of each.
_______

Also if you have not visited this page you may want to, I’ll quote GOOGLE anyway:
http://www.google.com/webmasters/4.html

“3. I'm changing my URL. How can I maintain my rank?
Regrettably, we cannot manually change your listed address at the same time you move to your new site.
That said, there are steps you can take to make sure your transition is a smooth one. Google listings are based in part on our ability to find you from links on other sites. To preserve your rank, you will want to inform others who link to you of your change of address. One way to find out who is linking to you is to try a link search. Enter "link:[your full URL]" into the Google search box. You may not find every page that links to you with this method, but it should help you begin redirecting the links leading to your site. (Please note: we do not serve link queries for all of the sites in our index, so this may not produce any results for your site.) Once your new site is live, you may wish to place a permanent redirect (using a "301" code in HTTP headers) on your old site to inform visitors and search engines that your site has moved.
Finally, if your site goes unlisted for a time, this does not mean you were dropped from our index. Sometimes, in these transitions, we will fail to find a site at its new address. Just be sure that others are linking to you and we should pick you up on our next web crawl.”

Hope this helps,
Ken

[greeneagle]

OOPS - I missed one above Caveman!

Here you go - Straight from GOOGLE:

Design and Content Guidelines:


#2 "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."


Regards,
Ken

[adore]

Originally Posted by greeneagle

2) Also your SiteMap, although very well done, exceeds the maximum number of links recommended by GOOGLE on their “Webmasters Resources” pages by 20%.

http://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html
“Keep the links on a given page to a reasonable number (fewer than 100).”

This may require that you split up the sitemap into, “types of art” or other sub categories. This may also afford you the space and opportunity to use keywords in brief descriptions of each.

I wouldn't worry about that - it's just a suggestion, not a 'must have'. Having exceeded the number is logical in that case so there's nothing to worry about.

[greeneagle]

adore,

I am not sure it is good practice to arbritarily dismiss GOOGLE suggestions.

Ken

[adore]

Originally Posted by caveman

Thanks for clearing up on "backlinks", I am a wee bit wiser, but do you have any advice on how I get them without reciprocation?

I agree it's difficult to convince someone to place link to your site without reciprocation. But that's what it's all about - if you have high quality site with good content, people will be willingo to link to you without your requests.
Generally speaking, most links from directories are non-reciprocal ones.

Originally Posted by caveman

When I do a link check the values I get from Google are low and do not make sense as I have a lot of inbound links from other art sites.

'link:' query is not relevant - don't worry about that.
If you know links exist and pages are indexed you can be sure they are taken into account while determining rankings.

[adore]

Originally Posted by greeneagle

adore,

I am not sure it is good practice to arbritarily dismiss GOOGLE suggestions.

Ken

But it's still only a suggestion.

[greeneagle]

adore,

Should we just dismiss all GOOGLE Webmaster guidelines as just suggestions? How about W3C, they are after all simply suggested standards?

Ken

[adore]

Don't make it general.
I simply believe that having 101 (or even 150) links doesn't affect your ranks in any negative way - I know pages which have more than 100 links and are fully indexed along with all placed links.

[caveman]

Hi Adore, Chris Bowd and Greeneagle (Ken),

Many thanks for the mass of valuable information to help me straighten up my website for the benefit of Google. I had a great Friday but now I think I have a lot of work ahead of me.

I have started to seek those links pointing to .co.uk and change them to point to my new .com site.

Thanks for the link from your site Chris. I have changed the background colour of the whole site and hope that the googlebot appreciates this.
Please bear in mind that the following queries are from somebody with a very basic knowledge of computers and websites (though he is quite good with the paintbrush).
I intend to add the revisit metatag as suggested, but since I update my site sporadically (often daily, then no change for two weeks) should I request the robot to revisit after 10 to 15 days? Should I also precede the revisit tag with this tag <meta name = "robots" content = "INDEX,FOLLOW">
Do I put spaces in between these words?

Greeneagle, can you please enlighten me on the meaning of the abbreviations IMO and SERPS
I had a long read on your discussions about page title metatag. I am afraid it was beyond me and by the end of the second page I was reaching for the malt! I will be happy to take your advice and put in the missing metatag if I knew what it was! I thought the title tag was all I needed, but then I am only an artist and my assistant webmaster who has the same level of computer knowledge as me, spends most of her time modelling (as you can see from her many images on my website).

I plan to change my site map to two pages with a second page for paintings and prints linked from the site map main page.

Thanks again, I really appreciate this wealth of knowledge offered to me.

[hawkwind dave]

Hi Caveman,

IMO = In My Opinion

SERPs = Search Engine Results Pages (i think, it's near enough any how)

There's a useful glossary here, http://www.search-engine-glossary.co.uk/

good look, and a nice site.

[greeneagle]

Hello Caveman,

You asked:
“..should I request the robot to revisit after 10 to 15 days? Should I also precede the revisit tag with this tag <meta name = "robots" content = "INDEX,FOLLOW">
Do I put spaces in between these words?”
_____
I welcome anyone to correct me if I am wrong on this, but it seems as though the prevailing thought currently is that the only ones you really need are the “Title”, Description” and “Keyword” metatags.

I used to use about 20, in fact I still use a couple more myself. The robots are going to visit when the please, not when you ask them to – I am relatively sure that one is completely dead.. As far as what to “follow and index”, I believe they pay much more attention to your “robots.txt” file.
_____

Best Regards,
Ken

[Martin Smith]

Originally Posted by greeneagle

I welcome anyone to correct me if I am wrong on this, but it seems as though the prevailing thought currently is that the only ones you really need are the “Title”, Description” and “Keyword” metatags.

I haven't heard of a "Title" meta tag, the only three that I would bother with are "content", "description" and "keywords", the "content" meta tag is a required element.

[greeneagle]

Martin,

If you are talking about the character set identification tag, ie..
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
That just augments the Document Type Declaration, sure it is absolutely necessary, but I don't even count that one as a metatag, it's a given!

Every meta-tag uses the word "content: to tell what's in it (formating). I have NEVER seen a separate "Content" metatag used in 1000s of sites, nor have I ever seen a metatag generator, generate one.

As far as the importance of the "Title" metatag see: http://webproworld.com/viewtopic.php...er=asc&start=0

There is a new thread going on "Which metatag topic", over here: http://webproworld.com/viewtopic.php?t=22017
Ken

[jackson992]

If you are talking about the character set identification tag, ie..
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
That just augments the Document Type Declaration, sure it is absolutely necessary, but I don't even count that one as a metatag, it's a given!


hmmm I have never used either of these.

<html>
<head>
<title></title>
<meta name="keywords" content="">
<meta name="description" content="">
</head>

<body>

<h1 align=center>Title from Title Tag</h1>

Page Content

</body>

</html>




That's all I use:)

[greeneagle]

jackson992,

Better check your code, This is what W3C says:

"No Character Encoding Found! Falling back to UTF-8"

Can't even get started - No Document Type Declaration!, no character code declaration --- Ohhhhh!

Didn't even bother to look at the rest!

Ken

[jackson992]

Yes I know I saw that last night:)


However it doesn't say what it means LOL

[greeneagle]

jackson992

It means that you are also missing the same 2 lines of code I presented Caveman early in this thread, please reread and insert in your code if going with transitional EN,that is , if you want SE's to behave correctly!, or insert the complementary to match whatever Document Type and Character code you are using! -

Hope that helps,
Ken

[Mel]

Originally Posted by greeneagle

jackson992

It means that you are also missing the same 2 lines of code I presented Caveman early in this thread, please reread and insert in your code if going with transitional EN,that is , if you want SE's to behave correctly!, or insert the complementary to match whatever Document Type and Character code you are using! -

Hope that helps,
Ken

Ken, If you are suggesting that the lack of a dtd and/or a meta content tag is holding back spiders and/or search engines then I must disagree.

Both of these tags are more or less necessary for browsers to interpret how to display the results, (but pages without them still usually display just fine) but they are not at all necessary for spiders, who do not to display the contents of the code, they merely read whatever is there and report it back to the search engines. Nor do spiders (or browsers for that matter) need to have W3C compliant code in order to read it.

There are advantages in validating your code, but mostly because it may show up coding errors which would result in your pages not being parsed correctly. This does not mean that if your page fails a validation for some of the silly reasons most pages do (like the failure of having blank alt tags on spacer gifs, failure to declare that javascript is also text, etc) that it is going to affect the search engines ability to parse the page. I am talking about major errors, like forgetting to close an H tag or a TD, which make it diffucult to parse the page.

IMO the inclusion or omission of either or both of these tags has nothing to do with how search engines react to a page, but of course if you have some evidence to the contrary I would be most interested in it.

[jackson992]

Ken & Mel:

Would this have any affect on my rankings?



P.s.

Mel I made a few changes today. Let me know if I'm on the right track if you could please:)

[greeneagle]

Mel,

I don't believe I ever said anything about those code issues keeping search engines out.

We have gotten pretty far off of topic though.

Caveman,

Have a look at the "LIST: High Ranking Directories and Indices" thread and submit your site to as many as possible. I believe it is growing enough to help!
Here you go: http://www.webproworld.com/viewtopic.php?t=21900

Ken

[Martin Smith]

Originally Posted by greeneagle

Martin,

If you are talking about the character set identification tag, ie..
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
That just augments the Document Type Declaration, sure it is absolutely necessary, but I don't even count that one as a metatag, it's a given!

Every meta-tag uses the word "content: to tell what's in it (formating). I have NEVER seen a separate "Content" metatag used in 1000s of sites, nor have I ever seen a metatag generator, generate one.

Your are correct, I should have said "Content Type" not simply content. I do not see why you "don't even count" it as a meta tag, it is the document describing itself after all.

Originally Posted by greeneagle

As far as the importance of the "Title" metatag see: http://webproworld.com/viewtopic.php...er=asc&start=0

This thread refers to the title tag (doubtless of importance), not the title meta tag.

[Mel]

Originally Posted by greeneagle

Mel,

I don't believe I ever said anything about those code issues keeping search engines out.

We have gotten pretty far off of topic though...

Ken

Sorry Ken but that is how I interpreted these posts:

Better check your code, This is what W3C says:

"No Character Encoding Found! Falling back to UTF-8"

Can't even get started - No Document Type Declaration!, no character code declaration --- Ohhhhh!

Didn't even bother to look at the rest!

It means that you are also missing the same 2 lines of code I presented Caveman early in this thread, please reread and insert in your code if going with transitional EN,that is , if you want SE's to behave correctly!, or insert the complementary to match whatever Document Type and Character code you are using! -

Sorry if I misinterpreted what you said.

[greeneagle]

Martin Smith,

Quote:
“Your are correct, I should have said "Content Type" not simply content. I do not see why you "don't even count" it as a meta tag, it is the document describing itself after all.”
____
I use the Macromedia Suite designing sites, that one is a “given”, I don’t have to mentally or physically manipulate it like I do the other metatags.
________________

Another Quote:

"greeneagle wrote:
As far as the importance of the "Title" metatag see: http://webproworld.com/viewtopic.php...er=asc&start=0


This thread refers to the title tag (doubtless of importance), not the title meta tag."
_______________

Where do you come off there? – I am referring directly to the “Title“ metatag!

Ken

[Martin Smith]

Originally Posted by greeneagle

Another Quote:

"greeneagle wrote:
As far as the importance of the "Title" metatag see: http://webproworld.com/viewtopic.php...er=asc&start=0


This thread refers to the title tag (doubtless of importance), not the title meta tag."
_______________

Where do you come off there? – I am referring directly to the “Title“ metatag!

Ken

On reflection it is grey exactly what that thread is about!

Mel's post dated Tue Jun 01, 2004 11:11 am points out that you have two title tags (of sorts) on the page, the actual title tag (which I took it that the thread refers to) and a meta title tag (which a brief dig reveals seems to be used by the "Cheap HTML Parser" to convert HTML docs to ASCII ones).

[greeneagle]

Martin,

You and Mel are absolutely right. A Title tag is all important where as a title metatag is used only by a few, and the Search Engines may not even recognize it. I hope I didn't accidently mislead anyone by calling the primary Title Tag a metatag.

Let's see if we can help sort this out for Caveman, redeem myself and get back on topic:

Caveman, here is the current thinking on metatags by many web developers:

Your code should look something like this:

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> - This is a DTD (Document Type Declaration, of which there are many. It is the primary directive for the Search Engines to display your page correctly. Every page on your Site should have a DTD. It should be congruent with a specific coding method.
<html>
<head>
<title>Best landscape artist on the planet - Caveman Studios, landscapes, portraits, fine art</title> - This is your Title tag, although many refer to it as a "metatag" it is really a "Page Tag". It happens to probably be one of the most important "tags" It should precisely describe your page content with primary keywords used first and others in decending order from there. It should never be any longer than 10-12 words. It should be different for every page in your site, and it is probably not a good practice to put company or studio name first, unless you are a well known entity like Coca-Cola, where people will actually be searching for your studio/business name.
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" >This is a character set definition that further refines how the browsers display your Website. It is also important and should agree with the DTD above.
<meta name="description" content="Landscape artist extraordinaire! Home Page for one of the finest landscape artists on the planet.- Visit Caveman Studios for landscapes, portraits, fine art and more – See the works of one of the best artists alive, fine art at it’s best!” >This tag should probably be limited to 200 characters and be more descriptive than the title tag. You should use primary keywords first and bring in secondary and tertiary keywords after – in that order!. DO NOT USE ANY ITERATION OF A WORD MORE THAN 3 TIMES!
<meta name="keywords" content="<”landscape artist, landscape, artist, best, portrait, portrait artist, fine art, caveman, caveman studios”> It is extremely important to set up the keywords in a pyramidal hierarchical order of importance. The top word as #1, word #s 2&3 just below, word #s 4,5 and 6 just below. Streamline all other tags and HTML presentation to be in that order. DO NOT USE ANY REPRESENTATION OF A WORD MORE THAN 3 TIMES IN THE KEYWORD METATAG! Try and keep it to 10-12 keywords and phrases too!

Do not use the tag closing "/>" use ">" instead on all tags.

Beyond that SPILL YOUR SPELL (HTML text) on each page according to your pyramid above, using top keywords early and frequently without being awkward. Try to use each keyword around 6 times or so when text = 500-600 words, keep your keyword density up to where it ALMOST seems awqward - don't spam it though!

Beyond that – List with every PR4+ Site you can. Less than PR 4 Sites don’t really help.
Even Beyond that: follow the guidelines on GOOGLE’s Webmaster Pages and watch what happens!

Many people use different tags, the current prevalent thinking is these are all that is necessary with the advancement of search engine technology. I still use a couple more to deleanate "Rating" - "Safe for Kids" and "Distribution" - Global, if that's the case, like it is for you.

I know it sounds complicated, but it’s not too bad.

I hope this helps sort things out for you Caveman - Again you are a great artist, My mom is an artist "Oil" and I am too. Her name is Val Bishop, Bishop Studios in SantaFe. I was raised around art, and know good art when I see it! - Good luck!
Ken

[caveman]

I've been away last week, but am amazed at the info waiting on me to sort out my "Google" problems.
Thanks to everyone who contributed a diverse array of solutions.
I have now put my site map on 2 pages and checked my source. It appears exactly as you suggested it should Greeneagle, ( I think )
The list of high ranking directories and indices is a mind blower. Once I sort out the duplicate content problem I will arrange to do a massive hand submit to many from this list. I will lose my artist's model for a month, as she does the typing ( she can type with more than one finger). She's also a great cook and expert gardener as well as model. Life can be good !!

What is the "robots.txt" file ? and who or what is LOL ?
I know these queries are very basic, but I'm at the begining of this learning curve.

Chris Bowd
I am getting referrers from the link you put on your site, which is great, but can you tell me where it is as I cannot find it.
Saw some great artwork today on a site in Sante-fe, Val Bishop paints my kind of art. Give her my regards, Greeneagle, and I hope we get back on track.

[JohnF]

Could someone point me to a site map that I could use as a template for my site? I've never used one and am not sure what a good one looks like.
Tx,
JohnF

www.ravllc.com

[rocos]

Originally Posted by JohnF

Could someone point me to a site map that I could use as a template for my site? I've never used one and am not sure what a good one looks like.
Tx,
JohnF

www.ravllc.com

Just build a page with less than 100 links.

[greeneagle]

Rocos,

One would have to assume that the correct spelling is "Sitemap" since it returns 111 million results over "Site Map" which returns 15 million.

There is more on SiteMaps in the GOOGLE Webmaster Pages.

ALWAYS USE TEXTURAL TEXT LINKING , and try to keep links on any given page <100, even if tiered. Make sure and use a short description with each page link.

Here is a PR9:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/sitemap.html

A search will reveal millions of more examples.

Ken

[pedstersplanet]

Originally Posted by adore

Try to set up 301 redirect from .co.uk domain to .com in order to avoid duplicate content and transfer all the profits (like PR and value of anchor text) to the main domain (.com).

Can someone check my .com url to see if I've properly set up the 301 redirect please. Thanks

[JohnF]

I tried it and ended up at Pedsters Planet. It appeared as if I hit a redirect but it flashed by so quick I can't be sure.

Thanx for the info on sitemaps.
JF

[pedstersplanet]

Originally Posted by JohnF

I tried it and ended up at Pedsters Planet. It appeared as if I hit a redirect but it flashed by so quick I can't be sure.

It should go to my co.uk domain, which it does, for me anyway.

Cheers for testing it.

[Martin Smith]

It works correctly.

FYI I find http://web-sniffer.net to be a very useful tool for this kind of thing.[/url]

[Mel]

Originally Posted by adore

I wouldn't worry about that - it's just a suggestion, not a 'must have'. Having exceeded the number is logical in that case so there's nothing to worry about.

My experience has been that although google will index and read pages with up to 500 links on them the spidering of the links becomes less and less effective so that while all the pages in the top 50 links may be spidered, probably less than 20% of the links at the bottom of the page will be spidered. Since the purpose of the sitemap is to get the pages spidered (I known, I know - we say we only build sitemaps for visitors, but do you think Google believes us?) this is not a good idea IMO.

[greeneagle]

Adore wrote:

"I wouldn't worry about that - it's just a suggestion, not a 'must have'. Having exceeded the number is logical in that case so there's nothing to worry about."
____

You were not very clear in your recommendation to disregard GOOGLES Webmaster’s advice on SiteMaps! – Are you also stating there is no reason to include a short anchor text blurb for each page as I recommended? - If anchor text doesn't have any search engine value anymore (even internally) surely you agree that page content description is a courtesy for visitors and will result in more page views per visit?

What is that "logical override alg exception" you are referring to and how are you privy to it?

Ken

[Mel]

Sorry Ken you must be working too many hours - That is not my post you are quoting but Adores.

[greeneagle]

Sorry about that Mel, I didn't think that sounded like you. The way it was presented it looked like a reply --- I'll edit the post right away!

Ken

[davidredwine]

Honestly, if you want to know how to really "crap out" (Las Vegas gambling term), I must have inadvertently created the perfect example.

IF YOU HAVE A MYSTERY ABOUT YOUR SITE, compare it to mine.

I used to be page 1 or 2 of every major search engine, including Google. Now I am still page 1 or 2 on Yahoo and page 2 of Altavista and Excite, but Google doesn't contain a single entry of my domain anymore. I have paid for a listing via Overture Site Match, and also have plunked down considerable funds for the AskJeeves paid inclusion and advertising, successfully added my site to ODP via DMOZ, and paid for priority listing in mamma.com which feeds a large number of sites.

I also am using the ongoing Submit Pro service from ineedhits.com.

STILL I AM IGNORED BY GOOGLE. Nothing has changed on my web site of any significance other than keyword "relevance". Supposedly Google ignores keywords anyway. I did change my text on the front page to be more relevant to my keywords, but that was just to obtain Yahoo's "relevance ranking" benefits.

So, go look at my source code, look at the site in general. I think you will agree that it is professional, well targeted, uses accurate title, description and content metatags, is not in general a site that might be deemed as an obvious "needs to be blacklisted" type site.

So what gives? This site is a perfect example of how to get page 1 or 2 ranking on some of the most powerful search engines in the world, yet be blacklisted and actually totally deleted from Google's index.

See if you can guess what is the problem with this site that causes Google to blacklist it. If you can, you are a better geek than me!
www.jamesonmanagement.com

[greeneagle]

davidredwine,

Your Site is a PR4 and that 4 blows thru to all your secondary pages, so you definitely are not being "blacklisted". You may be seeing some spam filtering though!

You use "dental" 18 times in your keywords and some variation of "consulting or "Consultant" 16 times in your keywords. THe recommended max is 3. You also have way too many keywords and phrases in your keyword metatag. You also have all your HTML verbiage at the bottom of the page. I believe the only real issue here is that you are in need of some serious SEO help!

But this might be off topic, You may do better in the "Submit your Site for Review Forum", since you don't seem to have been banished or neglected by GOOGLE.

Ken

[davidredwine]

Thanks for the rapid response, and I edited the previous note to include the url of discussion www.jamesonmangement.com.

What does PR4's blowing through my secondary pages mean?

What I see when I use tools to check Googles index ( like the one at http://www.ineedhits.com/free/popularity/) it shows the Google index does not contain a reference to my site.

My keyword phrase of choice is "dental practice management" pop that phrase into Yahoo or Excite, or AltaVista and you'll see us on page 1 or 2, use that phrase on google and you will NEVER find us. In fact, I haven't found any keyword combo that helps me find my site in google.

I have spent a good deal of $$$ on their Overture site match / and AskJeeves-Teoma / and Inktomi with 0 results of any measure for Google.

I guess I might have to resign myself to just not being listed in Google.

[greeneagle]

davidredwine,

You may want to reread my response. I was adding more clarity while you responded. Again this is probably off topic here.

I would ask for help on the forum I recommended and specify that it is an SEO issue. But even before you do, you may want to research specific metatag usage recommendations from various SEO sites.

The 4 "blow thru" means just that - every page has a PR4, secondary pages aren't at a lesser PR like many sites.

I would also be real concerned about using any SE submission service or outside SEO company that promises top rankings anywhere! Current thinking is that most Sites don't need to be submitted these days by submission services or software.

You will need to spend some time on the forums here.

You have got to remember that PR and "Serps" are 2 different monsters!

Definitely start with less "dental", less "consulting" and less keywords. Set up a pyramidal heirarchy of importance. Stick to it with the title, keyword and description metatag and the HTML body!

Review top competitors in GOOGLE. Lookat the metatags of the ist. She may have used "dental" 7 times but look how short the keyword metatag is, Look ho she works them in, How many times she uses them in the page body. There is no magic, she is not paying GOOGLE for that top position.

Ken

[davidredwine]

Thanks for the tips. Could you do me the honor of throwing both your own site of choice, and then secondarily my www.jamesonmanagement.com at the popularity checker?

http://www.ineedhits.com/free/popularity/

My site lists 0 hits in the Google index, yet I claim there is nothing truly ugly wrong about my web site code.

What does the popularity checker say for your favorite site in regards to number of links in google for it?

I see my site in google when I enter the actual URL, but my contention is "When you enter your url into the search box at Google and you see a link returned, that is no guarantee that google didn't pull that link from a partner. ( I.E. the link returned did NOT come out of Google's index).

My contention is my site is deleted from the Google index, that is why I submitted here.

But your suggestion is appreciated, and I will go submit for review in the other forum also.

Thanks,

[davidredwine]

Thanks for the tips. Could you do me the honor of throwing both your own site of choice, and then secondarily my www.jamesonmanagement.com at the popularity checker?

http://www.ineedhits.com/free/popularity/

My site lists 0 hits in the Google index, yet I claim there is nothing truly ugly wrong about my web site code.

What does the popularity checker say for your favorite site in regards to number of links in google for it?

I see my site in google when I enter the actual URL, but my contention is "When you enter your url into the search box at Google and you see a link returned, that is no guarantee that google didn't pull that link from a partner. ( I.E. the link returned did NOT come out of Google's index).

My contention is my site is deleted from the Google index, that is why I submitted here.

But your suggestion is appreciated, and I will go submit for review in the other forum also.

Thanks,