Go Figure??

[Cyber Gypsy]

Ok! Maybe one of you can figure this out.
Years ago I built a simple dimple little free site for Yolanda's Alterations because I wanted to and she did a lot of work for me.
It is on a free geocities server, no one is linking to her and she is #2 for poodle skirts and # 2 for clothing alterations on gooogle. She has a Poodle Skirt site that I built later, It's on Google but the little flea-bee site that is oboviously homemade and not my prized work is getting all the ranking.
http://www.geocities.com/tinkerbell89433/index.html
That is the link. some domain name.
Now why does google rank it is high when it goes against all the rules?
Cyber Gypsy

[cbp]

How did you work out that there are no links to it? I can find several, including DMOZ and Google directories - it has PR of 5 (you even link to it from your site!!!). I can not see anything on the site that is "against all the rules" - can you elaborate? 'Alterations' is in the anchor text of most of the links.

CBP

[cyanide]

I'm a little confused too about 'breaking rules' ?

It's actually not terribly uncommon for free host-type sites to get a decent ranking from search engines. And often a source of frustration for webmasters.

As, I'm sure you know, the big drawback with free hosts is the annoying popups which make me want to leave the site as soon as possible.

[Cyber Gypsy]

Oh I submitted it to the search engines and maxed out all the alt tags, but it lacks content.
I titled it corectly but there are better sites out there. I am not complaining. It is exactly what it is titled, alterations and poodle skirts. I could have put it on a server and used a better domain name and added more content etc. I guess I just don't get it. Yolanda got lucky.
I have put more work into other sites with 100's of pages of content and not done that well. I thought I had the engines figured out. That is until Google upset the apple cart.
I have a antique perfume bottle site that was #1. Now it is still #1 for antique perfume bottle but no where to be found for Antique Perfume Bottles.

Cyber Gypsy
http://www.artmatrixwebdesign.com

Oh I submitted it to the search engines and maxed out all the alt tags, but it lacks content.
I titled it corectly but there are better sites out there. I am not complaining. It is exactly what it is titled, alterations and poodle skirts. I could have put it on a server and used a better domain name and added more content etc. I guess I just don't get it. Yolanda got lucky.
I have put more work into other sites with 100's of pages of content and not done that well. I thought I had the engines figured out. That is until Google upset the apple cart.
I have a antique perfume bottle site that was #1. Now it is still #1 for antique perfume bottle but no where to be found for Antique Perfume Bottles.

Cyber Gypsy
http://www.artmatrixwebdesign.com

hi!.....well all i can say is that's great news for you/ your client that the site is real google friendly....no matter it be on accident or by design. it will inspire the more organic SEO minded and the people who don't have to money to buy addwords...... ALSO ...just looking at your code quickly I think the www.TrafficZap.com meta template you generated is really good and the fact that the site isnt' framed really helps....as you have both INDEX,FOLLOW and REVISIT in 4 DAYS which goes a long way for what i've seen in terms of googlebot.....who maintains the site? is the content refresed often? this may help too in combo w/ your solid meta template..

also for all we know there may be a whole lot of seamstresses out there in sewing chat rooms/forums dropping the URL link for the SE's to eventually pick up and "pollenate" the natural high page rank even further........

all in all it also goes to prove how SEO is still not an exact science and that everyday there are just as many exciting surprises as there are disappointments with google and other spider based SE's

OK hope your site continues to do well....
this was my 2 cents lol for what it's worth

DAREN
http://WebPageTurner.com

[maniactive]

Cyber Gypsy:

I noticed the same thing...I have two sites where I jumped to number 1 at Google for the singular form of a bunch of important keyword phrases (while my plural phrases lowered in many instances...or increased...or disappeared.)

I also noticed some fluctuations with changing verb tense (use = using, used or troubleshoot = troublehooting.)

That said, word of the week just might be "stemming", as Garrett noted at http://www.webproworld.com/viewtopic.php?t=9763

Apparently, Google is adding a level of sophistication to sort among the usage of 1) different tenses of verbs, 2) singular and plural forms 3) common misspellings of your choice keyword phrases.

However: I reviewed my stats, and found several phrases where I have a top 10 rankings for both singular and plural of the same popular phrases.

Here's what my stats show, in terms of numbers of visitors per phrase from Google (as of 1pm today):

plural: 102 visitors
singular: 25 visitors

Here's another:

plural: 128 visitors
singular: 9 visitors

In my case, I think plurals rule! But I'll still seek for ways to get both (not just one or the other!)

[minstrel]

I've had the same experience. It takes time to (1) figure out what phrases people might use to find you, and (2) what is the best order of words within those phrases, as well as the singular versus plural form.

As an example, try these in Google (excuse the self-promotion but on limited coffee today these are the ones that come to mind):

ottawa psychologist
ottawa psychologists
psychologist ottawa
psychologists ottawa

Each of these will yield a slightly different result - actually, before the latest (and still ongoing) Google adjustments, there was more variation in the SE listings, which I find encouraging...

[Cyber Gypsy]

Thanks for all the comments.
I stayed up all night last night expieamenting with Google. When I typed in antique perfume bottles (the plural) I got too many irrelevant results like fragrancenet.com. Today I was looking for paw print gifs. It didn't turn up much but lists of commercial sites. I may shop for another engine like dogpile for my own personal use. I know they are a conglomerate, but I used to use them before Google came along.
Cyber Gypsy