Google Won't Love Me!

[skatenow619]

Hey guys/gals.

I've been working on my SEO for sometime on Skate-Shoes-X.com getting relevant backlinks, XML sitemaps, etc.

And, Yahoo and other search engines love me.

But, google won't give me any love. What am I doing wrong? :(

thanks in advance

[cyanide]

Could be duplicate content penalty.
SkateShoesx.com and Skate-Shoes-X.com

[incrediblehelp]

cyanide is partial right. I don't know if I would call it a penalty, but Google definitely could be confused.

You registered skateshoesx.com created: 21-Feb-2006
You registered skate-shoes-x.com created: 11-Apr-2005

You would think Google would see the dashed domain as the primary, but that is not the case. The one just registered two months ago is showing up in Google.

If this is what you want then 301 redirect the dashed domain to the one without. This will deliver the clear message to all the search engines.

[SemAdvance]

Not sure but your site appears to be an affiliate of shoes.com and as such you should be pushed down on Google in favor of the vendor.

Also since your keyword terms would be using brand names the proper owners of the brand should also win any ranking battles in the organic side if they have done some seo work to their pages.

Again while doing well on Msn & Yahoo...Google won by being more relevant... which seems to be still working now.

Hope this helps.

[skatenow619]

Thanks for the advice guys/gals.

I took your advice but backwards. I made SkateShoesX.com a 301redirect to Skate-Shoes-X.com which is the primary domain with the most relevant backlinks etc.

Additionally, I changed my sig here to the skate-shoes-x.com because I noted that this forum gets lots of respect from google (which is awesome ;) ) I understand the link isn't relevant but, still I believe it helped get Skateshoesx.com well veresed with google in the 2months its been registered.

In regards to Shoes.com affiliate and brand keywords. I understand they will always win out but, the ultimate goal is to rank top 5 for each of those brand categories of my niche market. I believe its a really achieveable goal but disheartening that google doesn't give me the respect I'm looking for.

Another thing that was brought up was the sandbox effect and with my initial domain turning 1 year old hopefully that will be over with.

Any other advice would be helpful and very appreciated as was all your peoples previous advice.

Thanks Again

[mavahntooth]

try to continue it and monitor your google rankings. I hope you will rank well... patience is a virtue! :D

[bj]

Another thing that would definitely help is to move your blog off blogspot and onto your domain. I know wordpress has ways to transfer your posts. Just think of each page of keyphrase rich content from your blog being a backdoor into your site . . . so much more content. If you want to push yourself up in the ranks you should seriously consider this move.

[skatenow619]

Hey BJ, thanks for the advice. I also think this will help me out alot and made the move today! Hopefully google will take to that.