http://www.linkage.nl

kcire · #1 (**permalink**) 08-13-2004, 05:11 PM

Hello everybody !
http://www.linkage.nl is my latest personal project which evolved from me and my endless lists of bookmarks. My aim is to get it noticed...But Google just will not find it, anybody knows why ?! I have spend a lot of attention to my keywords, meta tags etc. etc. but it still does not appear on Google. Maybe I overdid it ?!

Looking forward to your suggestions...

nickc · #2 (**permalink**) 08-14-2004, 06:30 AM

Page appears to be blank. Are you using frames?

Nick

kcire · #3 (**permalink**) 08-14-2004, 09:38 AM

Thanks for your reaction Nick !

Mmhh...I am not happy ! I am using frames, but
if the problem is using frames, then why do they excist ?!

Most people who have seen http://www.linkage.nl do not seem to experience any problems.

And more important, how can I test if everything is allright ? Because it works...but you are getting a blank page ?
I just do not get it...

what am I doing wrong ?!
(maybe the screen resolution redirect script I have used ?!)

I am in desperate need of help because this way I am losing a lot of sleep...
Thanks again!

kcire · #4 (**permalink**) 02-02-2008, 03:01 PM

It's done!

I finally changed LINKAGE...From a frameset-based hell to a smooth operating CSS-based heaven!

Feel free to check it out:
LINKAGE, a NICE WEBSITES PORTAL - For inspiration and news! (c)'08

It now also is possible to rate a website, leave a comment or tell a friend all about a specific website. Also LINKAGE provides a 'weekly YouTube pick'!

At the moment I am quite happy with LINKAGE.

What do people here think?

davebarnes · #5 (**permalink**) 02-02-2008, 05:13 PM

I think you need to view in Firefox under Mac OS 10.5 as some alignment appears to be off.

I arrived at the site and its purpose was not immediately clear to me.

kcire · #6 (**permalink**) 02-02-2008, 10:14 PM

Firefox Mac OS 10.5?! Will look into that a.s.a.p., at the moment I have no Mac to my availability.

The purpose of the website isn't clear...?

It's only purpose is to daily present a screenshot of a nice website that was build with Flash. Also some 'loose' links without a screenshot will be present most of the time...And that's it, nothing more nothing less. I thought that the sentence 'For Inspiration & News' made a few things clear...But it didn't...

Maybe have any suggestions on how to make it more clear...Now that you know what we are talking about?

tomlom · #7 (**permalink**) 02-09-2008, 12:34 AM

"It's only purpose is to daily present a screenshot of a nice website that was build with Flash. -- tells me more about your site than "For Inspiration and News." Why not put that on your front page (with spelling corrected--incidentally, there are numerous spelling and grammatical errors).

How are you searching for your site on Google? "Linkage" has multiple meanings; Googling "linkage portal" returns your site first.

kgun · #8 (**permalink**) 02-09-2008, 07:29 AM

<side note>
Since you are from Holland, may be you know of Favorez - DHTML menu builder for website navigation using your own IE favorites. , a tool that automatically exports your favourites to an XML file and styles it with XSLT. The exellent tool is made by Tom Kalmijn from Holland that runs a small company WarpGear Software - IT services that has some other tools too. I have used the tool and it is easy to use.

How can you use that tool to set up an XML driven social network search engine?

Hint:
By combining favourites from one or more social networks. The links can be ranked / weighted in many ways, e.g. by how many of the members that have included the link in their (weighted or unweighted) collection. Combine the files into well structured folders and make a good site search engine.
</side note>

kcire · #9 (**permalink**) 02-09-2008, 12:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tomlom

"It's only purpose is to daily present a screenshot of a nice website that was build with Flash. -- tells me more about your site than "For Inspiration and News." Why not put that on your front page (with spelling corrected--incidentally, there are numerous spelling and grammatical errors).

How are you searching for your site on Google? "Linkage" has multiple meanings; Googling "linkage portal" returns your site first.

You are right...I am not Coca-Cola or so, so who knows? When I started LINKAGE I didn't know anything about the web, it's been a long way.

When searching for 'nice websites' I am number 1, so that makes up for me focusing on the word 'linkage'. This is with Google.nl and .com...I am quite happy with this and am at the moment researching what keywords and <title> tags and so are better.

Also I have discovered a lot of 'SEO tools' that are available for the open source WordPress ( WordPress › Blog Tool and Weblog Platform ) weblogsystem I am using.

But for now isn't it nice that 'nice websites' ends up on LINKAGE?

And...I am a strong believer in returning links. When people are nice enough to place a returning link I see this as a valuable extension of LINKAGE. And more important...It appears on relevant websites! The returning links to LINKAGE are growing and I think this is most important.

And tomlom about the spelling errors, which do you mean? I thought I did it rather nicely...I never use spell-check.

kcire · #10 (**permalink**) 02-09-2008, 03:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kgun

<side note>
Since you are from Holland, may be you know of Favorez - DHTML menu builder for website navigation using your own IE favorites. , a tool that automatically exports your favourites to an XML file and styles it with XSLT. </side note>

Mmhh...'XML' is nice and will be adapted slowly but surely...Isn't my RSS Feed XML based? The one's that Wordpress generates automatically I mean...

See: LINKAGE Â» 2008

Anyhow...This is a whole other chapter and something I (maybe) will look into at a later time.

Thanks for the tip!

tomlom · #11 (**permalink**) 02-09-2008, 04:41 PM

The spelling errors I found were on your "about" page:

The story, paragraph 1: "it's" should be "its";
paragraph 3: "one's" should be "ones" and "build" should be "built";

Credits paragraph: "a Open Source" should be "an Open Source."

Also, "Linkage Logo's" on the menu and the page so-named should be "Linkage Logos."

And you're correct--aside from these you did do it rather nicely.

kcire · #12 (**permalink**) 02-09-2008, 06:25 PM

Hey Tomlom,

Thanks for pointing out the spelling errors, I have corrected them!

One's and ones...I'll never forget!

amxfan · #13 (**permalink**) 02-11-2008, 12:30 AM

Just a few quick things that I saw while looking at your site. Before I go any further, you stated in your first post that you cannot be found on Google. I did a quick backlink check and Google knows of about 149 backlinks to your site. So Google knows of your site and has indexed it, but my question is looking at your site, I see a lot of links but I do not see any real content / plain text to support your keywords. With that said, let me get into what else I saw.
Looking at the source code of your page I notice that you have two titles. You also have two descriptions and two sets of keywords. This needs to be fixed.
I also noticed that you named the more popular robots by name and told them to index and follow. This information is not needed as they index and follow by default, but if you wanted to state it anyways, it ought to be moved to a robots.txt file. I would also recommend that you remove all the styles from the code and put them in an external style sheet and while your at it, remove all the javascript and put it in external .js files. Your page also I notice loads real slow and takes about a minute before anything is displayed. By removing the unnecessary code, and removing the styles and javascripts, not only will it help the search engines navigate your site, but it will also help the load time. But I do highly recommend that if you want to compete for the keywords that you have in your code, you have to use them periodically throughout the page. I understand your site is a link site, but with the lack of content, you are coming across as a very pretty directory. I hope this helps.

kcire · #14 (**permalink**) 02-11-2008, 05:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by amxfan

Just a few quick things that I saw while looking at your site. Before I go any further, you stated in your first post that you cannot be found on Google. I did a quick backlink check and Google knows of about 149 backlinks to your site. So Google knows of your site and has indexed it, but my question is looking at your site, I see a lot of links but I do not see any real content / plain text to support your keywords. With that said, let me get into what else I saw.

Yes...This is because at the moment I posted it (08-13-2004, 11:11 PM) this was a issue. At the moment I am quite happy with my Google possition. Maybe I should have made a new post..

Quote:

Looking at the source code of your page I notice that you have two titles. You also have two descriptions and two sets of keywords. This needs to be fixed.

I have looked at this and adjusted it...Now the two rows of keywords are the same, as is the description. They are mentioned twice because one is a 'meta http-equiv' and the other is a 'meta name'...Or are they just the same? Which indeed makes it a little too much...

Quote:

I also noticed that you named the more popular robots by name and told them to index and follow. This information is not needed as they index and follow by default, but if you wanted to state it anyways, it ought to be moved to a robots.txt file. I would also recommend that you remove all the styles from the code and put them in an external style sheet and while your at it, remove all the javascript and put it in external .js files. Your page also I notice loads real slow and takes about a minute before anything is displayed. By removing the unnecessary code, and removing the styles and javascripts, not only will it help the search engines navigate your site, but it will also help the load time.

Mmhh...While I know about the styles in the code and about the Javascripts I didn't pay much attention to this. And actually this comes as a shock to silly me. In the process of making it 'all browser friendly' I really lost track of all style additions I made...Wil work on it!

Quote:

But I do highly recommend that if you want to compete for the keywords that you have in your code, you have to use them periodically throughout the page. I understand your site is a link site, but with the lack of content, you are coming across as a very pretty directory. I hope this helps.

I know about all of this now...Little did I know in the beginning of LINKAGE. Is it bad to be recognized as a 'pretty directory'? Cause that's all it is actually.

This is the reason I added a 'about LINKAGE' page. Any other text just would be there to 'trick' Google and the likes, I don't like that. Any suggestions on what kind of content could I ad without it just being there for searchengines and so?

AMXFan...Thanks I guess...:worried:

Will look into everything at this moment!

amxfan · #15 (**permalink**) 02-11-2008, 09:54 PM

I did not notice the date of your first post and no I did not check to see where you ranked for all of your keywords. But yes I did see you have good PR due to your back links, but I still stand by your need to add some real text to support your keywords and to let people know why your page is there, how to use your page, a brief description of each link so people know a little about the site before they get there. Your "Category Just Great" does not tell much.

As far as the META goes, may I refer you to HTML tag reference guide - <META>

I also have to ask, why do all your links have a title tag of "Visit this website in a new window".

I called your site a pretty directory, but in a directory each link falls under a category, and possibly a subdirectory, and each link in a category has a brief description "usually the sites description tag". For example, you have a category Music, then a group of links under it with no further description. What are the sites that you have linked about? Are they on the recording end of the industry? Are they on the song writing end? What type of music? Just having the Music category is too broad and vague. Your blog lay out does looks nice, but I do not feel you state enough about each link, hence making your site a little confusing.

kcire · #16 (**permalink**) 02-11-2008, 10:08 PM

I have a lot to think about...

Making everything more clear is a priority!
It seems like it isn't really clear that 'the screenshot' is categorized ('music' for example) but the rest of the links (Todays Quick Picks) are just random links that have nothing to do with the website that is mentioned with the screenshot...Or did you get that?

I did it like this because I consider the screenshot, 'quick picks' and occasional 'news items' as the post for that day. Otherwise I would have to make a post for the screenshot, a post for the 'quick picks' and another for the 'news items'. Or maybe this is better to keep things clear?

The text 'Visit this website in a new window' was just to make clear it will open in a new window, I figured 'why not?!'...What else should I put here?

I will look into the META tag link you mentioned...

Thanks for all your advice! You are keeping me busy...

amxfan · #17 (**permalink**) 02-12-2008, 12:58 AM

To answer your question of what to put in the Title tag. I would put the sites name or something like that.

Here is a cut past from your sites Today Quick Picks just as a idea thats all. I added the brief descriptions.

List of links:
hazethefilm.com "Official site for the film Haze"
www.chichaulam.com "Lam, Chi Chau Wilson [composer/guitarist] "
www.wellcomecollection.org "The Heart looked at the evolution of our understanding of what the heart is"
www.andremancini.com "Portfolio Andre Mancini"
www1.darktemptation.nl "AXE Maneater Game"
www.whitevoid.com "WHITEvoid creates interactive installations and products for museums, exhibitions, trade fairs, festivals, events, concerts and clubs"

This way people know a little more about the site before they go to it.

Keep up the good work you have a nice site and for starting out knowing very little you have come a long way and should be proud. I look forward to seeing your next site. I know your going to make one if you have not done so already for it is in your blood

kcire · #18 (**permalink**) 02-12-2008, 11:51 AM

You're flathering me...

I have made some other websites so far and every day seem to learn something new, I guess this will never stop. Ain't the web great?!

Will look into the title-tag within the links, I always thought nobody reads this (although I myself always do?!). Will this title-tag within the links be read by search engines or is this just 'user friendly'?

Thanks again for all your advice, it's highly appreciated!

And maybe you have noticed...I have put all Javascripts in external situations. Also I have removed 98% of the styles in the code...Some little things just have to be there untill I find a nicer solution. Also I have removed the double keywords and description lines from the <meta> tags.

Everything looks a lot cleaner now! But is it quicker?

How do I test the loading speed of LINKAGE? Is there a online tool somehwere?