What Do We Test Post "Jagger" Next? - Let's Play!

[greeneagle]

Dust the "Shelves" - It's Jagger House-Keeping Time!

Is Jagger settled enough to play?

I think it is; The official Jagger3 site and mine have been congruent for days now.

My Jagger casualty site is; www.huntandhunt.com

For “laser machining houston”, they fell from top 3 to 76th during Jagger 1 and 2, but during 3 they have climbed back to 18th and 19th at the time of this posting, without a single change on the site.

Here is what I think:

1) The GOOG really didn’t change much in “Jagger” over “Bourbon” besides strengthening commitments that the SEO community already knew about.

So where does that leave us here?

One change at a time!: Help me decide! – What do you want to see?:

1)I have “site-wide" links at the bottom of every page of my client’s pages back to my top URL: www.mountaineagleweb.com and am not having a problem with any other than that one. Did that cause problems? – Who knows. maybe the "LSI/LSA didn't recognize the association between "laser machining" and the "oil and gas industry" as portrayed?.

2) I may not be having a problem with the other sites due to the fact that they are primarily passed in the “Oil and Gas Industry”, which is clearly defined on my Portfolio Page (http://www.mountaineagleweb.com/Portfolio/Portfolio.htm)

I have a couple options ---Help me Play!---:

1) Not directly connected to the “Portfolio Page”, where we might be more relevant.
2) Site wide links “suck” ……. “NOT” , not having problems elsewhere!
3) Any links to the Site anywhere just don’t have anything to do with “Laser Machining Houston”… Not!.... look at “laser machining houston” again… it brings up my “Portfolio Page” in position #7, above my client!
4) Look again: Yes a great number of authoritive sites have moved above us as the dust settled, but look at who’s first: http://www.crowcorp.com/, They beat the org’s, net’s and gov’s… That’s not the issue here!
5) AARRRRGGGGHHHH!

So what do we do?

I think what needs to be done is change the sitewide links from their site back to mine to the more relevant “Portfolio Page”, instead of the default home page!

Are we “game” yet?

I think the dust has settled enough.

What do you think?

Should I?

I am ready to move now! - Let's Play! - What do you think?

We are going "Controlled" only here folks! One change at a time!

Ken

[ADAM Web Design]

Well, here's what I noticed from a controlled standpoint:

1) All but one of the sites that I didn't do anything to pre-Jagger pretty much maintained their position for the various keywords and phrases in the SERPs. A few went up slightly, most remained the same, and one that may well be "over-optimized" went down significantly. So in keeping with my kneejerk reaction, nothing + sites I believe are well done = Google agrees and left alone.

2) A client's site of mine is presently under construction at www.sustainabilityincubator.com .

I wrote an article for this client to help promote another site of theirs, and included a sustainabilityincubator.com link as well (I do have reasons for doing this, which I'm not at liberty to explain, so before anyone accuses me of being an idiot for doing this, there's a logic.)

Anyway, when I promoted the article I noticed from the raw logs that sustainabilityincubator.com ranks #5 under its business name of Sustainable Business Resource Centre (which in itself isn't overly impressive since it is the business name; however, Google indicates 34,500,000 results for the phrase so it has to have SOME value.) It also ranks #10 for the word "Innovolve" (my client's name).

I don't know of any other keyphrases it ranks under yet, since I really haven't focused on it.

The link that I just posted is either the second or third link that isn't contained within an article. There is a link to the site in my portfolio, and there's a link on WPW, and both were in there well before Jagger came about.

So...article links do help and have some weight.

As far as #4, I've noticed the same thing. I'm in position 9 under "HVAC Info" for a portfolio page belonging to my client. The client is #1, so that's fine with me, but it does show that Google doesn't necessarily have the ability to determine what a page is about within the overall context of a site. I don't know an HVAC valve from a Pop-Tart, other than the fact that Pop-Tarts are frosted.

Result #7, a findarticles.com article, also demonstrates the importance of articles in ranking. It's not an article I wrote, but it's still important.

Anchor text has some weight as well. In a recent post to Matt Cutts' blog during Jagger2, I used my name as the anchor text for my website for the first time ever. The next day, I noticed that my website was ranked #1 in SERPs, with the title attribute being my own name, according to Google. Granted, my name isn't exactly the most competitive keyphrase, but at 18,500 results, I shouldn't jump to #1 off of the anchor text for 1 IBL. Granted, my other IBLs and the weight of adamwebdesign.ca as a whole may be a factor, but even then, I found that just a bit hard to believe.

It did "slip" temporarily during the J3 rollout, but then when it was concluded returned to #1 with the only difference being that my name is no longer showing as the title.

Not totally scientific, but at least it gives a starting point.

[sysop9999]

Ken,

I'd add a tiny bit more content to the site. Looks as if G only got 8 pages indexed from the H&H site. You got like ....what? 142-something. Of course G thinks your page is more important even though you're 'only' using the keyphrase in one page - but think of the weight that page gets from the whole site it self.

I don't think the site-wide linking means much.....

[google junky]

New Meta Description:

Laser machining in Houston, Texas. a leading provider of oilfield perforating guns and other laser machined tubulars such as those used in the Automotive, Aerospace, and Architectural Industries. A precision machine shop with a strong laser machining capacity

The word "in" is a stopword and will be ignored which gives you the result of "Laser Machining Houston"

The plus here is that your main phrase is pushed towards the beginning rather than scattered to be found for relevence.

We have talked about systematic changes. I believe this would be one to try out before anything else. Give it about 3 days or so and see what it does. Luckily this would also be a change that you will be able to view easily in google to know that it has in fact changed.

At worst you would gain only 1 or 2 spots and at best you would be where you want to be.

[SafariMan]

This is a sad moment for me. While thinking about this reply, I just remembered that I dreamt about Yahoo last night. Something about me going around telling everyone about this new site www_autosomething_co_za, which turned out to be Yahoo's local version in South Africa. WHAT THE???? I don't even like Yahoo!!!! Anyhoo...

I have one site, www.jobs-at-large.co.za that's done fairly poorly on Google, not just since Jagger but always. #3 & #5 on MSN and #8 & #1 on Yahoo for my main 2 key phrases... Nowhere on G. The site had site-wide links to www.pspsoftware.co.za, which used to be a web design site.

After reading about site-wide links on here (I think one of Ken's posts), I removed all those links last Friday.
It's far too early to jump to conclusions, but in the past week I've had 3 days where google.co.za has sent more referals than msn.co.za, which had not happened once since I started the site in Feb.

Would love to see how your theory of linking to a relevant page turns out Ken.

[greeneagle]

sysop9999.

I don't have that many pages on any Site. I come close on one but it beats the competition "hands down"! The GOOG is indexing all the pages on the subject site.

Ken

[sysop9999]

greeneagle,

My mistake .... G only reports 112 indexed pages :-)

But the fact that your website comes up before your clients must mean that doorway pages still works.

You have a "doorway" on your site pointing at your client. Does your client point back at you as well? If so, this must mean that G see some relevancy towards your doorway regardless of your sites main theme....

did that make sense for anyone else than me? lol....

[wlodi]

hi Ken,

my opinion on Jagger is that deep linking gets higher score. We have been promoting deep pages of our sites and were treated by Jagger pretty well. The example of crowcorp.com is just an exception (see that all other pages in top10 are internal, including your portfolio page).
The page you mentioned has nothing to do with "laser machining houston". It just mentiones that the company provides such service.
Also, crowcorp has many more links than the page of your client and these links seem to be quite relevant + few come from big directories like Yahoo or business.com. Also, it has virtually no text so mentioning word 'laser' once improves keyword ratio on the page.
I'd simply concentrate on promoting the internal page instead of the index page of the site.

BTW: The deep link with correct anchor text located on your Portfolio page to: http://www.huntandhunt.com/Laser_Machining/Laser_Machining.htm gives 404 error. You put underscores instead of hyphens in the URL.

regards,
michal

[greeneagle]

sysop9999,

I don't have any idea where you are coming from...

That Site only has 8 pages (http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGLD,GGLD:2004-50,GGLD:en&q=site%3Awww%2Ehuntandhunt%2Ecom), and every one is indexed!

On top of that a relevant link from a Portfolio page (http://www.mountaineagleweb.com/Portfolio/Portfolio.htm) isn't anything like (doesn't even resemble) a "doorway" page!

Your posts are alien and seem like something from "outer space"... I don't know how to put it any other way.

There are 8 pages on the Site.
The GOOG has all of them indexed.
Don't know where you are getting 112-142 pages!!!
Don't know why you would even use obscenities like "doorway" in conjunction with my Portfolio page!

"Doorway" pages are mostly "black hat" - and there is nothing black hat about a Portfolio page. There is a world of difference between the two!

Are we on different planets or what, here?

Ken

[greeneagle]

wlodi,

There is the possibility that the Site doesn't deserve to come back further than it already has, given the amount of material, authoritiveness and IBLs.... I'll grant that. Maybe 18th and 19th place up from Jagger 76th (pre-Jagger #1), is just right where it really belongs now, but I don't think so with the "Houston" location search modifer.

As with my Portfolio Page that keeps creeping above my client there... I believe we are seeing the importance of OBL relevancy kick in. That's why I am thinking that I should link my clients back into that page, that deals primarily in "related" industries from my client. Currently the Site-wide reciprocal links are to my home page from clients. Their businesses don't have anything to do with Web Design & Development.

I think we will register a higher relevancy factor linking to the Portfolio page where they are mentioned in and along with their industry.

The other side of the coin though, there may be a reciprocal flag trip.... but I don't think that that is the real issue in Jagger. It's all about relevancy, I believe.

Ken

[sysop9999]

Ken,

Sorry I didn't made it clear. What I meant was, that your site (who's outranking your clients site), got 112 pages.

I'm well aware that your clients site only got 8 pages.
I believe I mentioned that in an earlier post too.

And I know it's not a doorwaypage nor should it be considered such.

[onlinetv]

sysop9999,

I don't have any idea where you are coming from...



On top of that a relevant link from a Portfolio page (http://www.mountaineagleweb.com/Portfolio/Portfolio.htm) isn't anything like (doesn't even resemble) a "doorway" page!

Your posts are alien and seem like something from "outer space"... I don't know how to put it any other way.

"Doorway" pages are mostly "black hat" - and there is nothing black hat about a Portfolio page. There is a world of difference between the two!

Are we on different planets or what, here?

Ken

Ken, you are taking offence too fast I think. And someone like me likes to be alien and from a different planet would find those compliments, not insults.

I read that missive "Doorway" as a page entrance to your client. A page, all set up to talk about another site and an entrance to it (entrance means to put someone in a trance so they enter your establishment and is the core meaning of the word). I am out of the loop for over a year, so a "Doorway" to me, being from another planet in the past, is such a beast as you have. BUT, also the term "blackhat" is something that is also new to me.

Blackhat being a term brought about from the birth and dictates of search engines like Google, who through their own inept programming cannot cope with a freeform network of sites, and prefer to carrot and stick you to conform to dictates for entrance. I really did not see him trying to brand you blackhat as you define it, and actually he asked you if you had completed the link by having your client link back to you. Something you think you should do.

For me, this discussion seems so un natural. Trying to justify and make sure it is not breaking their rules. You fear for linking or how you link to your work. I find that sad. One mans "Doorway" is another "splash page" or client discription page. Perception is always in the individual, yet as slaves to the dictates of Google we must second guess what the dictator wants.

I am still trying to figure out what you are talking about, the sites and keywords etc. You have so many people that know already what you are doing so we who do not are sort of falterning to help, watch or keep up.

[wlodi]

As with my Portfolio Page that keeps creeping above my client there... I believe we are seeing the importance of OBL relevancy kick in. That's why I am thinking that I should link my clients back into that page, that deals primarily in "related" industries from my client. Currently the Site-wide reciprocal links are to my home page from clients. Their businesses don't have anything to do with Web Design & Development.


Ken,

Here comes the problem with automation of the results :-)
You provide website creation and promotion services, so you have 100% right to show off that the client's page user is seeing was made by you. Also, imagine that I have a company site, but I also have some private pages there. My CV, my interests, pictures from recent holiday trip, my favourite websites... but my company sells shoes. Do you think I shall be punished for that?
If a search engine (ANY search engine) does not take such situations into consideration, it definitely is on the way down.
Thus, the only way is human reviews of sites. The problem is how to do that without spending twice as much as you make.
I would not bother about links but write 20 more pages full of good information about laser machining :)

[google junky]

Ken,

Did you read my post earlier and do you have any comments on it?

Google Junky

[aaron2005]

I believe that SEO is a trap and prefer to be alien until I make my first wave. I also believe that putting too much thought into gaming the system = webmaster purgatory.

Blah Blah Blah

[Ellio]

A point worth considering is that if this or any other forum did correctly figure out the recent jagger algo changes Google probably find out pretty quickly and would change it again before the revelation was of any use.

This thread and others are very useful in helping webmasters make decisions on their next move but I think we should be wary of making public conclusions should the problem be solved by a step by step approach.

Why not make Google guess what we are doing just for a change!

Shoot me down if you wish.

[pemburung]

Ellio, it's easier than that. All the forum needs to do, it seems, is run a bunch of sitewide seemingly (to a moronic bot) irrelevant links, or similar, G kicks it down to web never-never land, and we can say anything we want without them ever seeing it, as they won't be able to find it.....