Google Adwords "revenue protection"?

[wingnut]

Ok here's one that I am abolutely stumped with (and my client is quite unhappy and refusing to pay until he sees it resolved... not good!).

One of my sites http://www.rondivillskennels.com comes up top-4 on Yahoo & MSN for dozens of search terms but not anywhere near the top 100 for Google. I have complied with all of Google's "guidelines" for webmasters, and the site is keyword optimized reasonably well. We have an Adwords budget and spend about $120+ per month. We also spend ~$30/mo with Overture.

We have 200+ inbound links on msn and 85+ on yahoo the last time I checked. But ZERO on Google. This despite hundreds of manual (slow and methodical) link/site submissions several months ago (June/early July). We are now linked (since 2-3 mos) on several dozen sites which Google recognizes as linking to our competitors. Never participated in any dodgy link programs. I have submitted with Google Sitemaps. We are listed on DMOZ and have been for several months. PageRank still shows up as 0.

Here's an odd part: we were just *starting* to come up around 30th-50th or so for a few of our main Google keyword searches (eg - "vancouver boarding kennel"), then all of the sudden several days ago we are now NOWHERE to be seen.

Yahoo SE results: vancouver boarding kennel -- 1
MSN SE results: vancouver boarding kennel -- 2
Google SE results:
allinanchor:vancouver boarding kennel -- 1
allintext:vancouver boarding kennel -- 2
allintitle:vancouver boarding kennel -- 2
MAIN SEARCH RESULT:vancouver boarding kennel -- 253

Also, when you perform a "site:www.rondivillskennels.com", the pages we are have been linking to (main pages, daycare page) show up BELOW the stupid pages with only a photo.

This particular client is very unhappy and i feel like my hands are cuffed. I am at my wits end and may or may not jump off a bridge. (... jk about the bridge part) What is going on - could anyone please help?

Josh

[greeneagle]

Welcome to WPW wingnut,

You have:

0 IBLs (inbound links) listed in the GOOG
100 in MSN
67 in YAHOO

You definitely need to pound that keyboard some more submiting to relevant directories and doing press releases and article submissions when possible.

Have you visited this thread yet?:
http://www.webproworld.com/viewtopic.php?t=21900

Also spend a little more time looking at where the leaders are for your top keyphrases, how they got there and who links them in!

One of the position check tools I use with my GOOGLE API key reports that you are in the following positions for "Vancouver Boarding Kennel":

GOOGLE #398
MSN #6
YAHOO #2

When I review your top 3 word keyphrases for optimization here is what I find:

vancouver kennels boarding 3
boarding kennel daycare 3
kennel daycare richmond 3
retail store breeders 2
taxi vancouver airport 2

The numbers after each phrase represent the number of times used on your site.

You need to spend some time rewriting you HTML text to reflect where you really want to be found.

Ken

[wingnut]

Thanks for the advice Greeneagle. But does this explain the massive difference in the allinanchor, allintext etc etc and the actual search result?? Surely there has to be more!!

These are quite uncompetitive keywords. I'm *sure* our competitors aren't submitting links all day and writing press releases.

As for how I could better write my HTML code for optimization, I'm lost... My client wants to show up for a wide variety of searches... anything to do with dog kennels, or training or grooming or daycare in the Vancouver/Richmond/BC area. Up till now I thought I'd used these types of keywords at a good rate. Hmm. Any specific advice?

BTW, yes thanks for the thread link. I've been working my way through that. However it seems like as I do so, the Google rankings that we DID have (ie#30 or 50 etc) are getting worse.

Finally, how long do I have to wait to get a PR? And how long till Google recognizes any of my IBL's??

Frustrated but grateful for any help :)
Josh

[DEone]

Hey!

Feel free to submit your site to our dog website directory: http://www.pupforum.com/directory/

Not that it will make any kind of big deal in your search engine rankings, but it will certainly help increase traffic

wish i could help more

best of luck

chris

[brian.mark]

First off, PR doesn't mean much. Google only updates the publicly displayed PR every 3 or more months, so it'll take at least that long from when the links are seen until you see PR.

The link command doesn't show much of anything. I prefer "www.rondivillskennels.com" -site:rondivillskennels.com myself. That shows about 60.

Now, as for the site itself, this shows that the pages Google sees as most important are mostly the same title and very little content. Why not give those pages real titles? Even the unique titles, such as "Location & Business Hours - Richmond, BC" don't say all that much. How about "Kennel Location & Business Hours - Richmond, BC", or "Richmond, BC Kennel Hours".

Originally Posted by wingnut

As for how I could better write my HTML code for optimization, I'm lost... My client wants to show up for a wide variety of searches... anything to do with dog kennels, or training or grooming or daycare in the Vancouver/Richmond/BC area.

That means you're going to need to create a lot of content. Any given page on a website should target 1 - 2 primary phrases. No more, no less. Every page needs a purpose, and every purpose needs to be highly targeted. One page can't be everything, so figure your 10,000 terms related to dog kennels, training and grooming and start building content. It isn't rocket science that you're going to need to build a lot of pages to cover that many phrases.

The site seems pretty new. The allinanchor searches (not all that useful for much of anything) tend to be used when people are talking about the sandbox. While it is now generally accepted that it exists, SEO's aren't in agreement how long it lasts or even what point it starts at. The generally accepted length of time is 3 - 6 months, while some people say 12 or more. Starting point according to some is when G first sees your site, while others say it's when G sees the first link to your site. Given those definitions you could still be seeing the sandbox, and many people point at a drop of their low rankings right before they come out of the sandbox.

Maybe you're on your way out of the kiddie toys, maybe not. More links, tighter content focus, more links, more content and more links should get you where you want to be. (Yes, links are much more important than other things in Google for competitive terms. Your terms probably only need 2 doses of links, but more can't hurt in the long run, so long as the anchor text is focused and the links are from relevant pages.)

Brian.

[wingnut]

Thanks Brian. So Google "recognizes" about 60 IBLs to the site. hmm...

Why do you think 5 of the top 6 pages when we do a "site:www.rondivillskennels.com" are the useless pages with 1 photo for content and the same crappy unoptomized title? Even when I've been doing G.Sitemaps and putting a lower priority on those pages.

Also, after I do a batch of manually-added link submssions, what little Google Rankings we had actually go down. It simply seems like the more "by the book" SEO I do with this site it just creates a further penalty for some reason. In August I left it alone, did not add any links and did NOTHING for 2-3 weeks, and we were starting to come up (up to #23 for one particluar keyphrase)... then added more links and "boom"... down to #250.

Also Note - the page for the the links I was MOST RECENTLY adding (the "day_care_training.htm" page) is coming up LAST in the above site index. This is quite firmly backing up my cynicism for adding links in this sandboxed instance.

I just simply to not see a clear way forward at this point, and tbh since the site is reasonably optimized (but not perfect - and i thank you for the advice) the problem is not that we need to add/change keywords and content here and there. That stuff would be for example moving from a #4 to a #1-2 ranking. Keep in mind that the keyword phrases we're targeting are not competitive; we essentially have only 5-10 competitors who have sites.

Finally, back to the question implied in the title, could we simply be sandboxed because we're spending money on Adwords (and Overture)??

Frustrated & grateful for advice,
Josh :)

[brian.mark]

AdWords and Overture don't have any bearing on being in the sandbox or not. The sandbox, unfortunately, just takes time. Getting all your ducks in a row now will lead to a strong exit from the sandbox.

As for the single photo pages, those could be landing pages themselves... make the title useful and add a description of what the picture is. You never know what door people will take into your site. From what I've seen, Google organizes the site: command by order of importance within the site. It has a lot to do with link structure, etc. Of course, as links get recognized you end up with a shuffling. Ours is a bit of a mess at the moment. This isn't how I'd rank our pages in order of importance at all. Also, the priority in G.Sitemaps has nothing to do with ranking - they determine what is important to the visitor while you can tell them what is important that it gets indexed. It doesn't do much at all right now, especially on smaller sites.

The way you're describing the effects of more links really sounds like sandbox, so you probably have at least a couple months of this left. Patience should allow this site to rank well. There just isn't a good way to start up a website and immediately rank well.

Regardless if you only have 4 or 5 sites that you consider competitors, Google is showing 15,000+ pages that you're competing against. New sites just take a while to climb that many spots.

Brian.

[colinellis007]

I'm sorry because I'm no expert,(or maybe I am but don't recognise it) but there is a quick way to rank high very quickly. I`ve just done it on purpose, accidentally, improved it, changed it all in less than a month.
I started a new specialist flat roofing business about four weeks ago and the first thing I did was knock up a web site. I mean knock up.... £10.00 for registration and divert to one of my existing web spaces (new folder)A few hours work, 3 or 4 pages. I have this site crawled every 30 days (now changed to 14) lucky for me 5 days later I am ranking high in Google, Yahoo, MSN,Alta Vista etc.
I only have 3 incoming links for this new site and about 3 or 4 outgoing links (except for the other 2 or three page links) as well as creating this site in a new folder I also uploaded the 4 pages straight into my other web sites main folder.

I am now getting 1 and 2 for some more specific searches from what is the same site just duplicated.

You can check this by searching Yahoo for.... Flat roof repairs.... Number 1 thats me out of over a million. thats after tweeking, I origionally wanted flat roof repair which gives 2 million results but I was only in position 5. It took 3 days for this result to materialise after changing my pages optimization for the new search term.
I don`t get this result on Google but I did get in the top ten for flat roof repair.

If you are more specific, which is better for me as my area is Yorkshire and search for flat roof repairs yorkshire or North Yorkshire or Harrogate or York or Ripon. you will see that I am 1 and 2 all over the place.

Yes I know its easier for more specific searches but thats surely what people search for on a local basis.

So whats the secret, I'm not really sure but this is what I think.

title... title... title just one but short and specific. the exact key words you want to optimise for...
The first line of text must be the exact or in another order, the words again.
Use Header tags all of them if you can for the main key word phrase. you can still change the font,size etc. and keep the tag.
Then flood the page with the keywords of the search phrase...together, apart, back to front each word individually etc.
The last line of text should if possible contain the key word phrase or at least some of the words.
Have a couple of images named words out of the phrase.
Have any other pages that are linked to, named the key words.
And make sure your content = has a nice phrase with the search words at the begining and maybe loosly near the end.
Don`t use multiple keywords in the keywords = even with "......" it doesn't work, use single words with commas between each.
And finally all you need to do to get listed is to put a link on a page that is regularly spidered and you will be picked up. One link is all that is really needed.

It's realy a case of man against machine or maybe I'm just lucky, but I keep doing it.
If the tiniest bit of what I have said makes sense or helps someone a little bit I'm happy, the web is for sharing I get loads pleasure from other peoples writing and have learn't everything I know online or through experiment. I just need to learn to write better!!!!!!


cheers

Colin

[brian.mark]

Number 1 out of 1M in Yahoo for me is http://www.technosolution.co.uk/diy/...f/flatroof.htm
or maybe your site is http://www.radisol.com/flat-roof-repair/ (#7, but the only other top 10 result from the UK that I see). If either of those are the site in question, it's not a new site, simply a new page. New site = new domain, not just a new directory.

Yahoo and MSN don't currently have a sandbox or waiting period. We're specifically looking at Google in this post. Google just doesn't make it possible for a brand new domain to optimize and come up with decent rankings in a short period of time. Making a site that isn't too optimized actually has a better chance.

You're also telling me you have duplicate content. That strategy isn't going to work long. Once the engines see that it's duplicate, one or both will be filtered out (usually just one.)

So the other thing that sticks out as odd here is that you're saying you get crawled every 30 days, yet changes show up in the indexes within a few days. That really doesn't seem to add up at all.

If you really have something that is working on a brand new domain in Google, please show us the domain so we may learn. I just haven't seen any results for a brand new domain (less than 3 months) in a rather long time.

Brian.

[Duncan Pollock]

colinellis007: To put things into perspective -- and with all due respect to you -- it isn't all that difficult to achieve a good web presence in what amounts to a low/non competition market. So how many other flat roof repair people are there in Yorkshire and how many of them have a website?
It may not, in fact, be any brilliant SEO that's putting you on the first page. It could simply be that there's no one else or at least no great cluster of alternatives.
By all means, share your URL and its results with us -- we can always learn. But don't assume that you've stumbled upon some magic trick that may, after all, not exist.
I'm not -- honest -- trying to discourage you. Rather, I'm merely attempting to apply some scepticism to your suggestion that there's nothing involved in getting into the Top Ten.

Duncan

[colinellis007]

My site is
stormcheck.co.uk and I understand what you are saying about the difference between a new site and a new directory. I guess what I am essentially doing is creating a new directry in an existing site.
Maybe the results when searching from the UK are different than elswhere but I am still this morning 1st out of 1,060,000 results.. for flat roof repairs..
http://search.yahoo.com/bin/search?p=flat+roof+repairs
What I meant about being crawled was that I was lucky that I was crawled a couple of days after uploading my new "directory" then I changed my code to 15 days return which all fits into the last month.

With all due respect there are several hundred flat roofers in yorkshire and most of them with some sort of web site or presence, but it is not just specific local based sites that you are up against it`s everything to do with roofing.

http://www.google.com/search?q=flat+...airs+yorkshire

Maybe I am just lucky but it works for me

[sem-seo-pro]

See below

[sem-seo-pro]

Hi there

Actually your site needs to age some before making most receommended changes.

Created: 03-may-2005
Expires: 03-may-2007

You have some ripening time coming before you will see better results on Google...Plain and simple.

Your website is too new to do well in Google just yet. Tell the owner they will need the most valued SEO issue "patience" when dealing with Google.

However sitting at 398 out of 16,000+ other pages on first attempt is not bad either. Tell the owner that fact.

I would add boarding in between vancouver & kennels in your description tag and before the end of the year I predict you'll be in position #2 on the front page of Google

You also want to extend the domain registration as Googles March 05 Patent release indicates Google consider registrations of ten (10) years best and domains registered one (1) year to be used for spam purposes..

Try to get the owner to go to five (5) years.

My 1.5 cents adjusted due to inflation.

[sem-seo-pro]

colinellis007 Wrote

I'm sorry because I'm no expert,(or maybe I am but don't recognise it) but there is a quick way to rank high very quickly. I`ve just done it on purpose, accidentally, improved it, changed it all in less than a month.
I have this site crawled every 30 days (now changed to 14) lucky for me 5 days later I am ranking high in Google, Yahoo, MSN,Alta Vista etc.
I only have 3 incoming links for this new site and about 3 or 4 outgoing links (except for the other 2 or three page links) as well as creating this site in a new folder I also uploaded the 4 pages straight into my other web sites main folder.

Mmmm if you were close to expert you would remove the return tag and let the bots decide when to return.

Next there is no such thing as quick and Google.
Thats an oxymoron much like "military intelligence"

Then flood the page with the keywords of the search phrase...together, apart, back to front each word individually etc.

Again keyword spamming is not expert advice.

You are playing in a low value keyword category and as such tossing about general information on what worked for your website, however it is not much help to others who may be targeting much more competitive keywords.

One of the biggest challenges as a search engine marketer is helping new clients wase through tons of misinformation that they read when things are cast about as the way things work for all..

Also I hate to bust your bubble but you ranked for a keyword term with only 8,470 pages competing for "flat roof repair"

While it says there are 600,000 some competing pages those counts are for any use of the three words together in any form so repair roof flat would also be counted

By the way, I'm no expert either

Peace

[colinellis007]

Sorry it's me again, If you get bored of me just kick me off.
On the main subject..
I have just made the following sarch
http://www.google.com/search?q=board...nnels+richmond

wingnuts site comes up through a business directory at 9 and 10 position on the first page. OOK I know this is maybe not as good as the Actual site coming up there, but 2 clicks and a recomendation of sorts, I think, is pretty good.
Whats wrong with a directory being listed almost instantly while your site sits there for a couple of months. Surely we are all after traffic, customers, and sales and anyway you can make the links in the directory point to the site which is then only 2 clicks away.
How many times do people have to click click click just to get to the home page of some sites.

It sounds to me like your customer has invested, heavily and is reliant on instant revenue/return from his/her web site.
They should have used their money to advertise in local media if this is what they wanted.
I would show them that they have good positions which you have created through links and explain the situation. Then take the advice of all the pros above... (that excludes me!)do some individual page optimisation for what people will search for, ask around friends and family... what would you type in if you where looking for boarding kennels in....We humans are very similar and tend to follow certain paths.

[wingnut]

Thank you guys for your advice. I've made a couple more onsite tweaks as per recommended and will continue to do so.

Colin raised a good point. For keyword tags, what is the best current way to optimise this? IE...
- single words separated by commas, or the keyword phrases you're going for (eg how many times to use the word 'kennels')?
- how many instances of keywords to be used?
- length: is a good maximum keyword tag length still 250-400 characters?

Also, for submitting links, I am learning that you don't want to overdo it all at once, as you want your growth to appear 'organic' as viewed by Google. For a small starting-out site with maybe 100 links, what would be a good safe strategy then? For example, adding 40-50 links once per week? Or adding only 10-15 several times per week, etc?

Thanks again for your continued discussions & input.

Josh

[wingnut]

Hi again,

Any further advice, with these two follow-up questions? (ie - META keywords, link submissions)

Also, we now have 6 publicly recognized IBL's and 2090 IBL's as listed by Brian's method "www.rondivillskennels.com" -site:rondivillskennels.com on Google and still are nowhere to be seen. This 2090 is inflated my our Overture campaign... sites that have run our Overture ads.

Could Google possibly be recognizing many of these 2090 IBL's as spam, and subsequently penalizing us??? Should we change the Overture campaign to include ONLY Yahoo searches and not other sites??

Josh

[brian.mark]

Overture won't help nor harm you. It really just sounds like you're in need of a lot more links. You've got 37 pages in Google's index, you just don't have rankings. Rankings in Google normally come from links.

Brian.