Somebody Tell Me Why....?, Google Schmoogle..... Options

[GolfClubs]

Hey everybody, I am new here as you can tell. I have read alot of your posts for sometime, and with the new Google fiasco, I now have questions that I hope some of you smart people can help me with. I will be very detailed so you will know exactly what is happening, but will only explain it once. Thanks in advance for your patience.

To start, I have had a golf site up an running for about 4 years. Did all the work myself, as of a year ago, we were ranked in the top 3 (if not#1) in all search engines for all 2-3 keyword phrases relevant to our business. Then I heard all this fallout about Google and the changes back in November, so I waited and didnt see any change to our rank as we were still #1 in Google. Same for December and January. However, I had heard all this fuss about Link Partners and how it would help so I figured we had better start getting some good quality link partners. So at the beginning of February I added 67 new backlinks to our site (having zero to start with). Then Google did whatever they did at the end of February and we fell from #1 to #367. The highest ranking we now had for any phrase was #56. (meanwhile we maintained our #1 spots on all other engines).

So I went back to work and did some more of what you guys call "whitehat" optimization by adding more relevant content and enriching pages and tags with keywords, to mention a few. I also added more link partners, and keep in mind that I was being picky about the exchange, only exchanging with content relevant sites with good rankings themselves.

Then the march indexing came, and we went up...if you want to call it that. Our page that was #367 went up to #187 and our page that was #56 went up to #27 (while still maintaining the #1 spots in the other engines).

So now I was frustrated, especially since none of the top sites coming up for our keyword searches had any relevance to that term. Yesterday I was playing with it some more and figured I would compare our site against the site that is currently #1 and see where we differ (if you can't beat 'em, join 'em). Well, here is what I found that has me baffled:

Our site is keyword rich and full of updated content, has keywords in the Title tag, Keywords in the Meta Tags, keywords all over the page (but not in excess). We now have 67 link partners when we had zero before the drop, and we have a higher Alexa rank and Google PR than the #1 site.

The #1 site has not one mention of the keywords anywhere on there page, they have no meta tags, no inbound links, a lower Alexa ranking and Google PR and the only thing I can find relevant to that search term is that the have the 3 word keyword phrase used ONCE in their Title tag. Other than that they don't use the keyword or words once on the page.

Please help, as I am about to go get my job back at Burger King!!!

Shanked by Google (Ken)

[Gatorhardware]

I have been seeing that a lot in google too. There is a keyphrase that we are working on that has a page in the number two spot that doesn't even have one word in the keyphrase on the page at all. Then there is another page that is just a solid blue page with the same color text stuffed with keyword spam. We are hoping to stomp on them soon...... (IMG:http://www.highrankings.com/forum/style_emoticons/default/lol.gif)

[Randy]

Welcome Ken ! Sorry to hear about your recent struggles with Google. If it's any consolation, many other good sites are in the same boat.

The question becomes, if you're doing well in every other search engine do you want to jeopardize that for something that is broken? Or wait for them to fix it? It's pretty obvious that Google is still tweaking a good bit, so anything you change today may in fact be detrimental tomorrow. You have to be careful for sure.

That said, as a general statement, take a look at the linking text being used for links pointing towards your site and compare that result to the linking text that is pointing to your competitors. You'll likely find something very interesting in the results.

[ephricon]

What's your search term?

[GolfClubs]

Thanks guys.......As a business owner, you want to capitalize on every possible sale you can. Previously Google was bringing us up to 30% of our visitors and we want to do our best to reach that market for everything we can. I also feel since the other engines are playing games like Google is, That we are optimized for success there.

The main keyword phrase is Replacement golf clubs. I also notice that Google shows different results for a singular and a plural query. (didn't think they did that, however, we are optimized for both)

I have checked the link text, and all of our inbound links were installed with our keywords for this reason.

[GolfClubs]

Okay...new update...as of today the 27th, we have now oved up to the 10th spot for the plural of the Keywords. I think I am going to take the day off and go party!!!

Now, the question is....since we have only 2-3 main keyword phrases, I have optimized our 4 main pages, each for 1 keyword phrase. However it odes not seem that Google is listing our subpages and only listing our main page which is optimized for the plural of the keyword phrase.

I did see an improvement in the singular phrase, but it was showing the results for our main page also which is optimized for the plural.

Do I go back and optimize the main page for all of the keyword phrases now, or resubmit the other pages??

Either way....today is a great day!!! (I must remeber it is Google though, and tomorrow might be stormy again!)

[Beth_C]

Wow! Your first post and your last post were all on the same day. So after posting to High Rankings forum your rankings magically increased. How cool is that?!

Did you do anything to your site from the time of your first post to your last?

I noticed that the site that comes in #1 on all the other engines and #10 on google for replacement golf clubs has A LOT OF KEY WORDS at the bottom of the page.


Beth C.

[GolfClubs]

You got me Beth........I really haven't had any problems with Google, and I have noticed NO changes that everybody supposedly sasy they are doing................Just a simple post in here and all my problems were fixed!!!

I made no changes from the first post to the last, and as of last night the site was not in the top 10.

And since Google just crawled the site 4 days ago, I have no idea why they crawled it again 2-3 days later.

[GolfClubs]

Its nice to know that there are so many experienced people on this forum also, and all anybody can come up with is.........."Linking Text". (Randy - No offense and thanks for the help and comments).

[shahid]

Hellio Randy,

Can i ask you something which has confused me this month? I have always seen that most of the top results in allinanchor and actual search are very almost same. But it is not happening for one of my site. This site is top ranking for all the three keywords in allinanchor but at 58, 163 and 520 in actual results?

[ephricon]

Allow me to dump some ideas down here... I did a search on both the singular and plural of your replacement golf club key phrase. Here's what I've found:

Plural - the #1 site has a PR 3/2 (homepage/interior being shown). The have "golf" a few times in the text, and "clubs" only once. The word replacement is not on the page, but in the anchor text of link(s) pointing to that page.

The #2 site is using a bit of a spammy trick. Upon clicking it I was taken to a PR4 page that essentially said "click here" and had an auto redirect on it to their actual site. The redirect page was full of tons of keyword rich content that you could see if you paused the thing for a minute and scroll down.

The #3 site was clearly optimized for our terms here. The homepage is what shows which has a PR 4. I'm guessing this site might indeed be your site (its a new day so maybe you've bumped up even more).

My advice:

Tone Down Your Keyword Density: If you are the #3 site (or if your site resembles this site in your optimization, etc - which from your original description they seem to be similar) you need to TONE DOWN your optimization. Indeed, I do believe Google penalizes sites that use the key phrase excessively. Do your search and clicked the "cached" link so you can see where your key word is (again, assuming you are the #3 site or some site similar). On the #3 site its just too frequently. Making less keyword density is very tough to do, but I've had sites like yours where prior to the major update I was #1, and then fell off the map way lower that obviously inferior sites. You've got to tone down the keyword text for the main term. Put in some other related text that means similar things. In this case you might even benefit from more overall traffic from those terms b/c the competition is not real tight here - it seems that your main thing might be some sort of over-opt penalty.

Get More Inbound Links: I realize you said you have 67+. But in doing a link:www.yoursite.com search in Google its only showing 6. When you ask for links spend your time going after sites where your link will be on a PR 4 or higher page. If its not, don't waste your time there. Also, try and get your term as the anchor text of the link. I suggest you go through your link partners and see who is still linking to you. It may be time to do some cleaning there...

Restructure Pages: First, always be careful when changing your page names and structure, as you want to make sure you keep your PR. A good way to do this is make sure people link to your www.site.com and NOT www.site.com/index.htm b/c you will lose PR if you change your index page name or extension (even to .asp or .html). It appears as though your site likes to use numbers for folder and file names. Why??? This does nothing for SEO and must make it confusing as heck for you when trying to update stuff. Call your pages something that resembles what they are about. Also, keep the file structure as simple as possible. When possible, keep your homepage/index page as just index.html or index.extension and have it directly in the root of www.site.com. Having an index page or any page that's file path is www.site.com/page/page/9896243.htm does nothing for anyone.

Link Text: Already been said, but not just for inbound links. You might try also putting your navigation in the footer of every page as very old-school traditional boring text links. Be sure to use your keywords but also insure user-friendliness here. This can only help.

I hope this rambling of thoughts makes some sense. As always, its just my opinion. If indeed you are the #3 site as appears this AM than I think this is what you should do. Its also what I've done for some sites in very similar situations to yours. Best of luck.

[Jill]

Its nice to know that there are so many experienced people on this forum also, and all anybody can come up with is.........."Linking Text".

Sorry, you didn't get your money's worth.

Oh, and welcome. (IMG:http://www.highrankings.com/forum/style_emoticons/default/bye1.gif)

Jill

[ephricon]

Sorry, you didn't get your money's worth.

What? Did you see that last post I just put up. Sheesh! That's 20 minutes of my life I'll never have back!!!

[Randy]

Shahid,

First let me plainly state that I don't trust much of what Google tells me regarding links. They simply don't want to show you every piece of information they have available. Nor would I if I were in their shoes.

When I run a link relevance report I don't actually look at it from Google since they don't publicly report all backlinks. I look at it from other engines perspective, then attempt to extrapolate the data back to Google. With the assumption that Google knows about all of the backlinks reported by other engines since they have the largest index.

I just don't trust the link: allinanchor: and similar advanced commands offered at Google. They can give you false, or more precisely stated, incomplete information IMO.

Now, with that said, it used to be that 99% of the time when you compared an allinanchor: search to a normal search the results would be very similar, if not exactly the same. Remember that this is just one element involved in their algorithm. It is an important one, but far from the only one.

I would have to take a much closer look at many elements of your site to form an opinion. However as a general statement, if your allinanchor: search is vastly different from normal searches it might be wise for you to look at other elements. How and where you're using your keyword terms in the text, how many times you're using the term, how your site is structured, etc. The devil is in the details.

I must add a cautionary note... If your site ranks well in all of the other search engines but isn't in Google, I certainly would not recommend any massive changes. Google is obviously still trying to perfect their new algorithm, based upon the changes we're seeing almost daily. IMO it is not wise to "chase" anything they're doing right now, because it's very likely to change tomorrow.

If you can make small changes that improve your Google standing without hurting anything else, go for it. But if it's going to take anything close to an overhaul to please this one still-changing engine, I wouldn't do it.

In fact, I haven't. The only changes I've made for any of my sites for any search engine in the last 8 months is one specific site I'm using for testing purposes in an attempt to get a better handle on what each SE is giving more or less value to at the moment. Even then, I only do this because I enjoy the mental exercise of it all. And I always save back up copies of everything, just in case.

[Beth_C]

Ephricon,
What's interesting is that the site (whether or not it is our illustrious Golf Clubs or not) is in the top 10 of Google. So that huge amount of key word repitition is not hurting it at this time.

Beth C.