Confusing Google ranking with critical keywords

[bpaynter]

Hi everyone this is my first post! Been reading WebPro for months now; but running out of ideas for my site: Hotslots132.com. Here is the problem: we have a few key phrases we need to rank on the first page: 1/32 slot cars.. Carrera slot cars Scalextric slot cars... These are our Key search phrases... before Christmas.. we had them nailed..fell in Jan. but moved back up on first page... up until March.. built a new site in March with OScommerce. with a new programmer Slavi, kept the URL.. though.. we lost Carrera slot cars in April.. sank...down into the low 80's then lost 1/32 slot cars in late May..dropped down to 42.. and got it back to 17th..
Here is where I am totally stumped..
When I do a Google search for 1/32 slot cars-45,300 results Scalextric slot cars-52,400 Carrera only, 32,600.. yet we rank 5 in Scalextric.. the one with the most competition? Can't figure it out... We have created individual text pages for Carrera, and Scalextric pages, built a site map, created a page with a complete Carrera listing to see if that would help our Carrera pages. We are working on our links; but we do have more links that some of the site already on the first page.. right now. the first site for 1/32 slot cars mgussein.uk has 175 links, 6,slotcarworld, 277, 8,oakridgehobbies.com 299, 10,slotracer.ca 69links, we have 449 links... I'd really appreciate your help!

Thanks!
bj

[bhartzer]

Welcome to the forums, bpaynter. I would say that you're ranking for certain terms due to the on-page factors like keyword density, and not because of the links you have to your site.

You certainly have a lot of keyword phrases on the main page of your site, which is helping you in certain cases and hurting you badly in others.

[bpaynter]

Your response on the keywords: We had 1/32 slot cars locked in to a 5 spot for months but lost it recently... are you saying we need to radically reduce the keywords for 1/32 slot cars and Carrera on the home page? When 1/32 slot cars fell to 42 we added more links at the bottom and a few phrases at the side and 1/32 came up to 17.. but held there.. are the links at the bottom of the page hurting? Do they factor in at all?

[bhartzer]

bpaynter, everything on the page is taken into account, so your links on the home page definitely count.

As for your particular rankings for particular keywords, I haven't done a complete analysis of your page, but a few things come to mind when I look at it. You may have a penalty for over-optimization, as that page definitely looks over-optimized and Google in particular doesn't like that one bit. I'm not saying that this is what's happening to you, but it could be a possibility.

Also, I would analyze the top 5-10 results (your competitors' pages) for each keyword you're targeting and make sure that your keyword density, keyword prominence, number of links, and PR is in line with what their pages are--especially the keyword density for certain terms. If you're too high, then you wont rank for that keyword phrase.

[bpaynter]

The competitors pages are all over the board, one of the main ones links straight to their site map.. so it goes straight to a secondary page full of links. ie Carrera has approximately 15 links just different pages etc.. /132 slot car must be said about 40 times on that site map page.. www.ncphobbies.com
a few of the others have minimal words... major links some with a few links have long pages that go on and on with product listings. So, all things being equal, your thoughts would be that with our ranking being the best in Scalextric.. and our keywords being the fewest on our home page with Scalextric.. that you would recommend that we go back and strip down the phrases 1/32 and Carrera to a minimum? If over optimizing is the issue.. would we expect that it would take several weeks to see a ranking change.. not just the next time we are scanned?

[bpaynter]

Another question regarding the google ranking is we are trying to get our site map scanned and used to help our ranking like one of our key competitor sites... but Google doesn't seem to be finding our site map at all. We don't have it set up the same as all our other pages... Do you think that is hurting us?

Appreciate your help!
Thanks again,

bpaynter

[cbp]

You need to get rid of the session id's - Googlebot spits the dummy when it comes across them.

..whoa - I just wrote the above, went back to the site to check something and they gone ..
maybe someone with more experience than me can comment on that.

CBP

[bhartzer]

cbp, you're not seeing things, I got the cookies when I visited the site just now. They definitely have to go.

[HardCoded]

It's a PHP thing, a slight coding error. Since it doesn't see a session ID on your first visit, since your browser didn't send a cookie, it thinks you aren't allowing cookies and puts the session ID in the links. Second time in, it sees your cookie and doesn't have to change your links.

Of course Google doesn't do cookies and will always see the gunk in the URL.

Turn session.use_trans_sid to "0" in php.ini to fix

[Dave Hawley]

Bj,

What it looks like to me is your homepage is trying to catch all related keywords/phrases. You should have one page for each keyword/phrase you want to target. Your homepage should bring in only a small amount of direct SE traffic, while you specific topic pages should bring in far more.

IMO, it's far better to get 100 hits from 10+ pages as apposed to 100 hits from one page.

[stan64]

Hi Dave:

our site www.americanbridal.com - frequently gets drop in and out of google in the last 2 months, for my keywords of

bridal accessories, wedding favors, wedding cameras, bridal party gifts, bridesmaid gifts, groomens gifts, wedding accessories

when we're in... we in decent page position between 1 to page 4... however, when we get filtered out of one key word... seems like we're filtered out of all keywords... or listed on page 40 and beyond...

also, since you were responding to the site map question... how can i tell if google is reading our site map???

thanks in advance for your help... this is our key wedding season (like christmas to other online retailers and google is killing us)

[Dave Hawley]

Hi stan64

An allinurl:americanbridal search shows you have lot's a page in google. So I would say Google is chewing up your pages ok.

When you say "frequently gets drop in and out of google in the last 2 months" are you refering to your homepage? If so this is one of the biggest mistakes, IMO, made by Webmasters. A drop of anyone page on a site should have little to no effect if it's set-up properly. This means Content, Content and more Content. Each content page should be linked (and when possible from other sites) to another is some sort of logical sense. I use links like

See Also: Keyword Link | KeyPhrase link

[stan64]

Originally Posted by Dave Hawley

Hi stan64

An allinurl:americanbridal search shows you have lot's a page in google. So I would say Google is chewing up your pages ok.

When you say "frequently gets drop in and out of google in the last 2 months" are you refering to your homepage? If so this is one of the biggest mistakes, IMO, made by Webmasters. A drop of anyone page on a site should have little to no effect if it's set-up properly. This means Content, Content and more Content. Each content page should be linked (and when possible from other sites) to another is some sort of logical sense. I use links like

See Also: Keyword Link | KeyPhrase link

HI Dave:

i'm not a computer tech person, can you spell it out a little more clearly?

for example:

1. on content, should it appear on the home page?
2. you said content page should be linked when possible to from other sites... you mean other sites to me right (a back link) - working on this.. how do want achieve 25K to 80K backlinks??? legally???
3. also keyword link and keyphrase link - what exactly are these???

yes, filtered out google, every 10 days... then i would change my page title or and a keyword on homepage and then we would be back again for 10 days... but it takes about 5 days to get back in... its been very very frustrating...:(

thanks for your help..getting married... you can get employee discount if i actually manage to stay on google long enough...LOL

shirley

[Dave Hawley]

Hi Shirley

1. on content, should it appear on the home page?

No too sure I understand this. When I say "Content" I mean pages that would be on your site, ie content pages.

2. you said content page should be linked when possible to from other sites... you mean other sites to me right (a back link) - working on this.. how do want achieve 25K to 80K backlinks??? legally???

I would lower you sights just a bit :o) You will find that links to you are hard to aquire. Their are 2 ways that help.

1) Exchange links, but only with sites that would be of use to your site visitors.

2) Good content can attract links from others site without the need to link back.

Don't worry about who links to you, just make sure you only link to relavant pages.

3. also keyword link and keyphrase link - what exactly are these???

An example, if you were selling apples would be;
See Also:<a href ="http://www.domian.com/apples.html" "Our big red juicy apples are fresh and sweet">Red Apples</a>

yes, filtered out google, every 10 days... then i would change my page title or and a keyword on homepage and then we would be back again for 10 days... but it takes about 5 days to get back in... its been very very frustrating...:(

You are chasing your tail I fear. Make a change and wait at least 5-8 weeks. While you are waiting you add more content pages.

thanks for your help..getting married... you can get employee discount if i actually manage to stay on google long enough...LOL

My wife would kill me.....or perhaps walk me down the aisle :)

[stan64]

hi Dave:

thanks for your reply... perhaps wedding gifts for your friends instead... wouldn't want to compromise your current standing, BTW - Renewing of Bows are really popular now and this suggestion would definitely score some points with the wifey... LOL

okay.. now any other ideas to my situation, did you other forum moderators and members agree or disagree with Dave's accessment...

i will work towards some of his suggestions, some of them i can't do without re-doing all the product page which will take time to fix...we have over 1000+ items.

shirley

[stan64]

hi Dave:

thanks for your reply... perhaps wedding gifts for your friends instead... wouldn't want to compromise your current standing, BTW - Renewing of Bows are really popular now and this suggestion would definitely score some points with the wifey... LOL

okay.. now any other ideas to my situation, did you other forum moderators and members agree or disagree with Dave's accessment...

i will work towards some of his suggestions, some of them i can't do without re-doing all the product page which will take time to fix...we have over 1000+ items.

shirley

[bpaynter]

Thanks for the ideas on the site! We have edited the front page already and have prevented the search engines now from using the session id's..
Big thanks on that one too!! Appreciate the ideas very much. We do have text pages one layer deep where we are trying to focus on the specific key words. Carrera being our biggest seller... One of my questions is this is a page where we offer a lot of education to our clients.. Will we get penalized for the length of text? Should we worry about the length of the page? Also, now that we have reduced the key phrases... how long should we wait to see an improvement in the ranking?


bpaynter

[Dave Hawley]

score some points with the wifey... LOL

It's funny you should say that, I keep telling my wife I'm going to buy her a T-shirt with
wifey
Smack bang on the front! I'll do this one day, perhaps on out wedding anniversary :)

[stan64]

i'll email you if i see a good design, but if not you can always get one embroidered..(be sure to buy from a reputable place, t-shirt have a tendency to shirt with washing and the embroidery shrinks and curls... *not a good thing*

shirley
www.americanbridal.com