Check out this trick

[janeth]

I read this on another forum and now I can not find where I saw it.
But anyway this is a neat trick if you do a search for "custom web site" we should be ranked number one. Look at the arrow pointing to our name.
We did it by putting & # 9 6 5 8 ; in the title tag.
We did it a couple weeks ago and our traffic has doubled since we have done it.
Just remove the spaces in the code below and it will work.

arrow
& # 9 6 5 8 ;
star
& # 9 7 8 8 ;
Black Smile
& # 9 7 8 7 ;
White Smile
& # 9 7 8 6 ;

I know we are getting more hits now then we have ever gotten before and this is the only thing we have changed this month.

[rlrouse]

Neat trick.

[minstrel]

Originally Posted by janeth

this is a neat trick...

shhhh.... everyone else might hear... next time, just tell me, okay? that way, it will just be you and me, each at the top of our categories...

:-)


But seriously, if it works, why do you think that is? has it changed your ranking at all? or is it just that it is another way of drawing attention to your site when people look at a long list of results from a search?

[rlrouse]

It would probably draw attention to the listing, make it stand out from the rest.

[janeth]

It draws attention to the site. Our hits have more then doubled in the last two weeks.

It is because the arrow which I was about to take off after I saw it. I think it makes our site stand out in the rankings and causes more people to click on it.

I was scared at first that we may drop in the ranking but the ranking has actually gotten better but I think that is due to our links being added every day.

Anyway I'm going to add it to every page now.

[Jurgen]

Hello Janeth,

At first I did not know what you are talking about. I do use netscape (still some people do.... )
I did see your arrow in the explorer and opera. In netscape only a "question mark" shows up.... :-)

I did apply your "neat" trick in my home page. Let's see what comes up.

Jurgen
www.absolutelyfabulousflowers.com

[cbp]

Can the moderators please delete this thread? :-)

I like the idea and don't want too many people doing it :-)

CBP

[busy1]

I tried to place the code in my title but I have a website title feature where I just type in regular words, & it edits the html in the title for me.

So by placing the code in of course I see the code and so does everyone else. I can edit the body and add tags but can't seem to html the mega tag title, description, or keywords.
I have a spot I type in and it converts it. Does anyone know anyway around this? I can switch between 3 editors from basic to advanced but I still don't seem to have any control over the title, description or keywords html.
Thanks,
Lynn

[minstrel]

Originally Posted by busy1

I tried to place the code in my title but I have a website title feature where I just type in regular words, & it edits the html in the title for me.

Hi, Lynn:

Is this a web-based editor, like the ones you would use to create pages on sites like Yahoo/Geocities? If so, you are basically supplying information to a template editor and you have little or no control over the html code it generates.

On the other hand, if your editor is a program on your own computer, look to see if it has an "HTML" option, which allows you to go in and directly edit the HTML. The major editors like Dreamweaver and FrontPage have this feature, as do many shareware editors. If you are using a shareware program on your own computer that does not have this feature, you can open the file in Notepad and edit the HTML that way.

[busy1]

Hi,
I use citymax.com. I can't work offline only online if that adds anything to help.
Its not a template. I created the site with tables using the active editor. I can opt to use basic editor and write my own html, but I still can't seem to touch the title, description, or keywords with any of the editor choices, just the body.
Maybe if I erased the title that I have now in my title bar that converts to html and put in my own tags in the body it would work?
Hope this makes sense.
Thanks Again
Lynn

[minstrel]

Originally Posted by busy1

I use citymax.com. I can't work offline only online if that adds anything to help.
Its not a template. I created the site with tables using the active editor. I can opt to use basic editor and write my own html, but I still can't seem to touch the title, description, or keywords with any of the editor choices, just the body.

I'm afraid I'm not familiar with citymax but they may well put limits on titles, tags, and such.. sorry I can't help you with this one.

[busy1]

Janeth,
Looked at your sites "View Source" and can't find the neat trick anymore.
Did you take it out because of concern.
Just wondering.
Lynn

[minstrel]

Originally Posted by busy1

Janeth, Looked at your sites "View Source" and can't find the neat trick anymore.
Did you take it out because of concern.

Hi, Lynn:

I won't try to speak for Janeth but it's possible - while you're waiting for her reply, have a look at this thread which might be relevant:
Something Big is happening at Google

[busy1]

Hi Minstrel,
Thanks for the heads up. I think I'll wait on
"neat trick" for now. :-)
Lynn

[minstrel]

Originally Posted by busy1

Thanks for the heads up. I think I'll wait on "neat trick" for now.

Don't misunderstand me - I have no idea whether the "trick" has anything to do with anything, although I suspect not because it was probably too recent an addition. All I meant to suggest was that with the Google adjustment going on it is clear Janeth was worried about the impact on her website and business and may well have decided not to take any chances. As I said, I don't want to speak for her and I have no idea whether Google would have any objection at all to non-ascii characters in a title.

[busy1]

Hi Minstrel,
I wasn't really thinking that the codes were bad.
I just meant heads up in that I will check to see whats happening on google with my own position and wait on the code as I thought maybe Janeth might be doing. No misunderstanding here.
Lynn

[busy1]

What do these tags mean? How do they help?

<META NAME="robots" CONTENT="index,follow">
<META NAME="Googlebot" CONTENT="index,follow">

Thanks,
Lynn

[minstrel]

Originally Posted by busy1

<META NAME="robots" CONTENT="index,follow">
<META NAME="Googlebot" CONTENT="index,follow">

They are instructions to spiders (web bots) to index a page and follow any links outward from the page to index other pages on your site: the first is a general instruction for any spider, while the second is specific to Google.

There are differing opinions on whether these help or hinder search engine optimization. It has been pointed out that bots already know how to index and follow web pages and links, so basically this is the default. Whether including them can be harmful is debatable but they probably don't do you any good and they are additional dead weight for the spiders to scan or for a visitor to download from your site. The tags are really only useful if there are pages on your website that you do NOT want indexed or "followed", in which case the syntax would be "noindex, nofollow" or perhaps "index, nofollow".

[busy1]

Thanks Minstrel.

[janeth]

Hi everyone the code is back on the page.

My site took a hard hit with Google it had nothing to do with the code but more to do with an over use of <h> tags.

I had been trying to see how many key words I could get the home page ranked for and had about 2,000 words and a lot of header tags and I do not think Google liked it. We still rank good for all the key words except the ones I had in the header tags.

[rlrouse]

can you explain the eyeball attention effect?

I think anything out of the ordinary tends to draw attention, and since the arrows are rarely seen (up till now at least), they do draw ones attention.

If half the webmasters with sites in Google did it, I don't think it would have much affect.

[jackson992]

Does anyone know if these are the only 3 things we could use? Is there maybe a list of things similar we could use? Thank you Janeth I had been wondering how my friends had done this trick:P