Conflicting advice from so-called SEO's

[enesral]

I am new to this forum but hope to get a little advice please. My website, http://www.Prepare4Disaster.com, used to rank on the first 2 pages of G and Y for almost two years. In January of this year I disappeared back to pages 20-26 on G and completeley from Y until 2 monthes ago. I've had to resort to PPC advertising to get back on the front pages and after conflicting SEO optimization schemes I'm afraid my site is royally screwed. Would someone please tell me if I can fix this myself or do I need to start all over. My site is mostly dynamically generated and all metatags for those pages are set the same and can't be changed. Also, all horizontal and vertical Links are dynamic as well. Should recreate those links by text links on all static HTML pages? Any suggestions would be helpful!

[KeithO]

The title tag makes no sense.

[bhartzer]

My site is mostly dynamically generated and all metatags for those pages are set the same and can't be changed.
That in itself is going to be your problem. Your pages are considered to be duplicate pages--and until you have unique meta tags and title tags most likely you will continue to suffer problems with rankings. Not only that, your pages are probably going to be end up being removed from Google.

You're going to have to fix this duplicate content issue yourself--or get your programmer to fix it for you.

[enesral]

Thank you for the responses so far. Everyone keeps telling me that the dynamic pages are not a problem since the the end of each link difers with a category, product, or page name tag. That's what's so confusing about the different SEO reports I get. They say it doesn't matter but 90% of the charges they want to fix this are PPC advertising funds, not page optimization charges. Also, is this something the search engines started knocking this year, because originally my first two years I had no problems reaching the first pages of G & Y with my content? Thanks again!

[bhartzer]

Google in particular has been "cracking down" on duplicate content and duplicate pages lately. It's not the URL that's duplicate, it's the content on the pages.

Other "SEOs" are pitching PPC because they simply don't know how to optimize your site and get it back in the rankings.

[enesral]

Thanks bhartzer for that clarification, the good news is that I can change the Title for each page maybe that's the only thing keeping my pages from being dumped completely. Most of my pages do show up under the site: search, so they are mostly indexed but my keywords are very hotly contested. I started this business 3 years ago as a second income and it quickly took over my life. Now, I'm trying everything I can to save my business but am running out of money to throw at the problem like the IBM commercials, and have to resort to saving it myself. Thanks again for your advice and I may have to consider moving my site to a software that gives me better control.

[bythevineyard]

What cart are you using? Is that SiteLink from Dydacomp?

[bhartzer]

change the Title for each page maybe that's the only thing keeping my pages from being dumped completely
Just changing the title tag won't do it. Each page needs to be at least 25 percent unique from any other web page.

[brian.mark]

My site is mostly dynamically generated and all metatags for those pages are set the same and can't be changed.

That's one of the worst cop-outs that I've ever heard. Our site is totally dynamic, but I can modify the meta tags either automatically based on page or manually based on page. A properly set up dynamic site should be easier to change, not more difficult.

Brian.

[enesral]

Yes, unfortunately until it worked fine until now! So, I started experimenting tonight and captured my main page with all the dynamicly generated product links and cut out the body saving the rest as a template of my own and I am little by little replacing every page except for my product categories pages with statics created from the template I made. Only drawback is if any of my links change or I add new ones, I'll have to add those links to every single page. I thought I gave up writing HTML years ago! Oh well, thanks for the comments and any suggestions about my keywords or saturation levels would be appreciated, it's been a long time since I did this by hand coding but it's my bread and butter so back to the trenches! Thanks again for help so far.

[DMC_34]

I agree with Brian.

Setting up dynamic meta tags is very easy. The same meta tags for every page is considered SPAM. But its not too late to fix it.

DMC

[sem-seo-pro]

My site is mostly dynamically generated and all metatags for those pages are set the same and can't be changed.

This will not incur a dupe content filter.

Dupe filter is applied to front side content not code on the back side.

Single metas through out only limit you in the amount of keywords you could rank for on engines where metas have more weight.

Google loves title tags. doesn't use the meta keywords. They may use meta description for your listing in the SERPs

Yahoo uses metas to match against page content, words in meta should also be on the page content per page.
There is no value for rankings.

Hope this helps clear up some information.

Clint

[enesral]

I appreciate this info. That still leaves me with a quandry as to what dropped my ranking so badly at the beginning of the year and has forced me to start over. Probably also an effect from ceasing to pay Y $400.00 a year to be included in their directory and also refusing their "kind" offer to move me to their $50.00/.30 per click program! I'm just sick of paying thousands of dollars to get such vastly differing opinions on what I need to do get back my early page rankings.

[cyanide]

My site is mostly dynamically generated and all metatags for those pages are set the same and can't be changed.

That's one of the worst cop-outs that I've ever heard.
I think that's a bit harsh to say. If people don't know.... they don't know.
A site owner hires a programmer with no seo experience to do their site and this is what quite often happens.

enesral
- Have you asked your programmer if he/she can dynamically populate the meta keyword/description tag?
- How long has your site been dynamic as it is now? from day one?
- I did notice a session id pop up occasionally in the url string. This can be a search engine killer
- the linking architecture of your site could use some work/refining


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[MarcieZoob]

Check your site for validation - you have 545 errors on your site! http://validator.w3.org

Many of your images are missing ALT tags, including your navigation buttons that are images. Create keyword-rich ALT attributes for all images on your site.

Focus on using better keywords in your tags and page content for increased keyword density overall.

[enesral]

Let's try this one at at a time:
1) Thanks cyanide I was ignoring that other comment as I know my experience is short in this field.
2)Software is by Succeed.com under the name IBuilder.
3)Tech support has explained I was told incorrectly that I couldn't edit individual metas by page and after a brief lesson I have been editting page names and mets all weekend.
4)Cyanide: From day one, session id?-I don't know but could that be related to web site tracking of new-returning visistors?, working on the links as I re-meta the pages. Thanks for your kind words and assistance!
I hope I answered everyone's questions and I'll check the 545 errors and find out what that is since I don't have a clue, Thanks MarcieZoob!

[brian.mark]

My site is mostly dynamically generated and all metatags for those pages are set the same and can't be changed.

That's one of the worst cop-outs that I've ever heard.
I think that's a bit harsh to say. If people don't know.... they don't know.
A site owner hires a programmer with no seo experience to do their site and this is what quite often happens.

enesral
- Have you asked your programmer if he/she can dynamically populate the meta keyword/description tag?
- How long has your site been dynamic as it is now? from day one?
- I did notice a session id pop up occasionally in the url string. This can be a search engine killer
- the linking architecture of your site could use some work/refining


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I hear that excuse too many times per day. It's not that they can't be changed... it's that someone doesn't want to put the effort in to change them.

You're right, it was harsh, and I apologize for that. But someone needs to step out and say that it's not that it can't be done but rather that someone is too lazy to get it done or has been told incorrectly that it can't be. It's usually a programmer that doesn't understand SEO that says this , or someone that doesn't see the value in allowing users to change simple things like that.

enesral, it sounds like it was the told incorrect variety in your case. I just wish more of the companies doing shopping carts and / or CMS systems would get their facts straight. It's not difficult to allow for custom page-level pieces like titles, metas, or specific content.

Session ID's are usually used to track a visitor through their visit. Normally, these are paramaters added to the end of your URL's
( ?sessionid=somereallybignumber ) and create many, many copies of the same content in the search engine indexes. This results in them giving up in spidering the site and dumping most everything they got from your site while they did spider.

Example of session id:

I clicked on "Car emergency kits" from your homepage and went to the following URL:

http://www.prepare4disaster.com/default.asp?SID=xWYWFS7EQYZBCYSDQNA2YB&S=E3&Document=Car+Emergency+Kits&NID=2447636

The SID=xWYWFS7EQYZBCYSDQNA2YB portion is the session id. These would be used instead of cookies or IP and useragent tracking (cookies being the common way, IP & UA being fairly rare), which means every time I go to your homepage I get a new SID, thus creating new URL's to the exact same content as I went to last time. I hope that clears that up in your mind, but turning that off for spiders is again something that your software provider will have to have made accomodations for.

Sorry again for being a bit snappy on the other post.

Brian.

[enesral]

Brian.Mark,
Thanks, no offense taken on my part. I'm sure you do that kind of excuse daily if not hourly! I don't like excuses either that's why I've taken personal control of my livelyhood and tried to save it. I'm a really old HTML 2.0 author and got out of writing years ago. Now everythings changed and but nothings different! These pages have not validated under any HTML checker for three years even under their most basic creation. I was told it's because of the ASP based nature of the dynamic pages. Another cop-out, properly but until I can face Tech Support with a quantifiable rebuke I might as be #$%ing in the wind. I do know that if a visitor allows cookies it uses the cookie for tracking, if not everything about their visit comes up null in the tracking software on the website. What about external tracking aplets like Sitemeter that I've been using to track more complete visitor stats, do those effect the search engine spiders? Thanks again to everyone commenting this is helping me immensely!

[brian.mark]

It's not for that type of tracking. Session ID's are for keeping track of a visitor from the time they enter your site through checkout so the site can remember what it was that they have viewed and want to purchase.

It has nothing to do with the stats you can view. Those don't have any bearing on search engines at all.

Brian.

[cyanide]

You're right, it was harsh, and I apologize for that. But someone needs to step out and say that it's not that it can't be done but rather that someone is too lazy to get it done or has been told incorrectly that it can't be. It's usually a programmer that doesn't understand SEO that says this , or someone that doesn't see the value in allowing users to change simple things like that.
no problem... it did seem out of character for you

I agree, though, that programmers need to get on the ball in regards to seo. Open - source programs/scripts are a notorious culprit, where add-ons, modules and hacks end up being created, after the fact, in order to make them more seo-friendly


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[enesral]

Brian.Mark:
"I'm sure you do that kind of excuse daily if not hourly!"

Should have read "...you do hear that kind..."

Sorry about the inference that you use the excuse. Thanks again for the advice! Now, I'm in a quandry as to whether to go ahead finish rewriting all my static pages using the template I made from the main page, or recreate the statics using the online editor now that I know I can edit metas for each page. If I create new dynamic pages and leave the old static pages that are listed in the search engines, I'll have duplicate content. But if I delete the old static pages in favor of the new dynamics, search engines that don't spider me weekly will have dead links to the old statics. Any advice or comments from anyone? Thanks again.

[brian.mark]

Now, I'm in a quandry as to whether to go ahead finish rewriting all my static pages using the template I made from the main page, or recreate the statics using the online editor now that I know I can edit metas for each page. If I create new dynamic pages and leave the old static pages that are listed in the search engines, I'll have duplicate content. But if I delete the old static pages in favor of the new dynamics, search engines that don't spider me weekly will have dead links to the old statics. Any advice or comments from anyone? Thanks again.

Easy, workable answer: Leave the static pages and add a robots noindex, follow meta tag to the pages as well as a refresh to the dynamic version.

Better answer: 301 redirects from the static pages to the dynamic pages.

Either will work, but the 301 will get the search engines to update their index a bit quicker.

Brian.

[enesral]

Unfortunately, my hosting server is MS IIS so I don't think I can use 301 redirects unless something has changed. Aren't 301's available on Apache servers only?

[Chris]

Unfortunately, my hosting server is MS IIS so I don't think I can use 301 redirects unless something has changed. Aren't 301's available on Apache servers only?

this should work (http://www.wwwcoder.com/main/parentid/263/site/2668/68/default.aspx):

301 Redirects via IIS

One way of accomplishing this is to use IIS and letting it know that the domain has moved. Simply go to the old site and instead of pointing to a folder location for your site, change it to do a permanent redirect for the resource. You can use the following directions to accomplish this in IIS:

1. Open Computer Management to manage your IIS Website.

2. Right click on your site and select Properties.

3. Under the Folder tab select "A redirection to a URL".

4. Type in the new domain information in the text box below.

5. Select "The exact URL entered above" and "A permanent redirection for this resource" in order to ensure that the 301 header will be sent to the client.

[enesral]

Thanks but I'm not redirecting an entire site only about 14 pages. Also, I don't own the IIS Server where my website is hosted therefore I don't have administrative rights.
I have found an .asp script that 301 redirects but it's for .asp pages. I need to modify it to redirect from a static html page to a dynamic .asp page in order to relocate the pages. If anyone doesn't have the script already it was posted here http://evolvedcode.net/content/code_relocated/ originally.

[cspelts]

If your current solution does not allow you to use different meta tags for each page, and you don't want to change solutions, then my vote is to leave the tags blank.

[enesral]

cspelts wrote:

If your current solution does not allow you to use different meta tags for each page, and you don't want to change solutions, then my vote is to leave the tags blank.

I can adjust my meta tags I have recently found out.