10 replies to this topic

[scaredycat]

Hi guys,

I have a client to whom I've explained the google aging filter, and that she might not achieve good rankings on google for quite some time no matter what she does. I followed the advice given here and suggested we concentrate on the other engines, she asked if there were any other options...

My question is this: She's not that attached to her domain name; if I can find an appropriate domain name for her business, that's been parked for over a year say,(at a reasonable price) will this get around the problem? i.e. will it be indexed quicker because its been live, even if its just parked, or does it have to be an existing site with 'real' content to get around it? Or should I just forget about it, and wait it out? Sorry if this sounds a bit convoluted, and thanks in advance.

Cheers

[Randy]

I would wait it out Janine.

Concentrate on getting good rankings in the other two engines, start a good linking campaign so that the site will rank well when it comes out of the aging filter and if need be, run some targeted Adwords campaign. The last part will not only get you some Google traffic but will also allow you to get a better feel for which phrases stand a good chance of bringing in the most quality traffic.

The domain switch-a-roo really isn't a viable option anymore. Not only will you likely spend far too much time and far too much money for an existing domain, but you won't know it's full history. Plus, remember that Google is now a fully qualified Registrar. So they'll be able to easily spot any change in ownership.

[Michael Martinez]

You can write some Web site reviews for your client and put them on free page services that are being crawled. The reviews would obviously be linking to the client site. What this does is create secondary visibility for the young site until Google decides it's ready to come out on its own.

You can also create some RSS feeds (especially if the client has a blog) and submit them to RSS directories. If the client updates the RSS feeds 2-3 times a week with interesting links, there is a good chance that people will add them to their Web aggregator start pages. And some Web aggregators actually generate static HTML pages for their feeds. I get referrals this way, and those pages are being crawled so Google will crawl them, too.

Your client can spend this time concentrating on building good content and interconnectivity with appropriate sites.

[rohgan03]

I would buy advertisements on relevant sites

[tempy]

As we are on the subject....

What's the latest estimate, around the virtual campfire, for waiting times to come out of the Google delay - for popular phrases?

...7 months and still waitng here.

[Michael Martinez]

Since Google changed a lot of stuff starting in December, I would say that any estimate at this point would at best be no better than a lucky guess.

But after 7 months of waiting, I would stop and reconsider the strategy for the site. If you're building links, stop. If you're doing anything else that a million SEO forums would have told you to do last year, stop.

[tempy]

Well the site was launched in October/November last year and has grown steadilly to include a forum, a glossary, a directory, about 100 relevant news and resource pages and 2-3 new pages a week.

The site has a 'decent amount' of incoming links (yes I know...), only from relevant sites (including the top three in Google for practically any relevant keyword). It links to no known 'dubious sites and there is absolutely zero spamming going on.

The site is on the first page of MSN and Yahoo for most relevant keywords. It hits the number 1 spot in Google for one or two more obscure terms, but absolutely nowhere for anything worth searching for.

The only possible problems that I can think of are;

It is with a virtual host and shares an IP address and has a couple of links and 301 redirects going to it from an old (similarish, but no duplicate content) site that I am trying to phase out (on a different web host). Should I just kill the old site and 301 the whole domain?

Any thoughts? I've put a heck of a lot of effort into this site.

p.s. for what it's worth it has a home page PR of 6 and the rest of the site is between 3-5, for each page.

Edited by tempy, 05 May 2005 - 04:33 AM.

[Jill]

I'd say it could be 1 year for competitive stuff.

[tempy]

I'd say it could be 1 year for competitive stuff.

Thanks Jill

I'll just hang in there then. Sniff.

[Michael Martinez]

For what it's worth, I agree with Jill. The more competitive your targeted phrases, the longer it may take.

[Peter]

My question is this: She's not that attached to her domain name; if I can find an appropriate domain name for her business, that's been parked for over a year say,(at a reasonable price) will this get around the problem?

As far as I understand the latest Google Patent, the age of the domain is just 1 age factor. Other factors are:

Age of pages
age of site
age of domain
age of backlinks
age of anchor texts in backlinks
etc.

Changing to a parked domain won't do that much good and probably will increase your waiting time. The patent indicates that age factors are compared to average ages of the above, but also to the average ages for all results for a query. Pretty complicated in all.

Best way forward is I think to simply continue with normal seo work which got you the ranks in other search engines. Eventually Google will follow. Links never hurt!