Help with google.

[banchory4x4]

Hi Everyone,

I' am trying to get noticed with google, but not having much luck.
I have looked at generating the sitemap on google and inserting the piece of code on actinic home page, to verify my site. But i dont know what actinic file to place it in.
Q. Am i going about it the right way?

Many thanks

Andy

Banchory 4x4

[jont]

Welcome to the site Andy.

The templates you need to add the links to are Act_BrochurePrimary.html (covers the homepage) and Act_Primary.html (the product pages) templates found in the root of the site1 folder.

There have been several discussions on the sitemap - especially the Google site map which can cause problems. It is worth doing a search on this forum for "sitemap" and on general "SEO" for some great Actinic specific tips and tricks

[banchory4x4]

Hi Jont,
Thanks for replying. I have been looking at previous threads, and that has landed me to where i am today.
I'll now try to find the 2 templates you suggested and add the link.

Thanks

Andy

[WILKO92]

Hi Andy,

Getting up on Google is job in itself.

Here are a few points to note.

Google has a 'sandbox' effect. This basically means that it takes a long time for improvements to take effect.

It also has a separate aging delay whereby new sites are artificially held back, normally for 6 - 12 Months. Progress during this time will be slow and unpredictable.

It has a very complicated algorithm to work out positioning and gives more weight to the quality of links from other sites than the other engines.

It hates page word spamming and is constantly changing to negate 'cheating methods'.

It has one basic aim - to rank sites in order of value to the searcher and has to battle against SEO's who generally want to distort this.

.....and a few tips that seem to have helped for me.

Find the most relevent search keywords/phrases and optimise one phrase per page with a few other associated words popped in. Include your phrase in the page title and description. The meta keyword tag is pretty much ignored.
Your page should read well and not sound like a list of words.
Your homepage is ideal for good content.

Build your pages with as much meaningful content as possible. Try to incorporate lots of stuff that will be useful to your users(help, tips etc.) You are looking for people to link to your site because it is interesting.

Build as many links as you can from sites associated with your site. Note that Google knows about link farms, paid directories, link directories that mean nothing etc. and values their links as nil. Links from important sites rank highly. Register with DMOS and then forget it. I'm still not in it after nearly a year but re-regestering puts you back at the back of the queue.
Learn from your competitors, check their linking/position.

Have patience and monitor your slight progress as you make changes.
If you are ranking well with MSN and Yahoo, chances are you will eventually
get similar ranking with Google.

Check out Highrankings.com/forum/

[RuralWeb]

Looking at your site I think you are being hit by a duplicate content penalty as many of your pages are in the supplimental results and are not available for searches.

You need to make your title tags dissimilar ie enter more descriptive tags into Actinic rather than the Actinic generated tags. They should be no more than 40 characters including spaces and include you keyword for that page.

You should also change the first 25 words of the page text as google looks at this to determine ranking at the moment yours is similar for many pages ie Tuning Box, diesel tuning etc If you are using meta description tags then make them different. It looks like you have used duplicates/cut and paste to build your products? this can produce this effect as each page then is very similar - this has been discussed before - do a search.

I would advise against a google sitemap.

[banchory4x4]

Hi,

Thanks for the help an opinion on my site.

I have thought i have been 'sandboxed'. but for how long?
The site has been up and running for over a year now.

The way i have built up the site is with some drag and drop as a lot of the Tuning Box are simiar.

Q. What are title tags.

Q. Is the page text the information that is next to the product images.

Please excuse my lack of knowledge.

Cheers

Andy

[RuralWeb]

I have thought i have been 'sandboxed'. but for how long?
The site has been up and running for over a year now.

You are not in the sandbox or under any sort of aging process.

The way i have built up the site is with some drag and drop as a lot of the Tuning Box are simiar.

This is the problem - every page that is a duplicate is being put in the supplimentary results by google.

Q. What are title tags.

Title tag (search on google will give more detail) is the text that shows in the blue bar at the top of internet explorer. It is VITAL to your rankings on Google. Actinic generates a tag made from your business name and the product/page title - this is very good and normally is ok, except when you create duplicates/copies as then the tag is the same. Google checks this tag and if it finds the same tag on several pages it will move the youngest pages into the supplimental results.

You need to enter unique text into the title field for each page/section/sub section this will replace the Actinic tag and on the next indexing your pages should move into the main index and be available for searching.

Q. Is the page text the information that is next to the product images.

Yes - this is a similar problem. Google looks at the first 25 words on a page to determine content, as with the title tag because you have used duplicates the text is very similar and this confirms to google a page of similar content. You need to generate unique content for each page - this can be difficult if you are selling similar products but do your best.

A google site map will not solve your problems.

Please excuse my lack of knowledge.

SEO is a very difficult area to be getting into, building the website is the easy bit! - as I have said on other SEO threads if you are interested in SEO you need to join one of the many SEO forums or visit an SEO website to get an idea of the basics. There is much information already on the forum about SEO and Actinic so make a strong coffee and have a read - good luck

[banchory4x4]

Hi malcom,

Thanks for your replies.

They have been very informative, and i'll endevour to do them justice.

I have been reading other threads for google, and at least i'm not the only one.

kind regards


Andy

[Bun]

If you are ranking well with MSN and Yahoo, chances are you will eventually
get similar ranking with Google.

That's what I'm hoping for

[banchory4x4]

Hi Malcom,

I have been busy doing the changes you advised for my site. Not as easy to think of a content name for the title page as it seems, especially when there is over 25 pages offering similar content.

Now the harder part to try and add different language into the text for each similar product.

I assume that google will pass by sometime in the near future and notice my site and the changes, as the last time it noticed was July last year.

Thanks to everyone who posted to my thread.

Andy

[RuralWeb]

Best of luck.

the last time it noticed was July last year

it will have been back but did not update because it saw no changes. When it comes back it will see the changes.

I would do the titles and wait a while to see if the pages get picked up then do the body text changes slowly - Google likes to see lots of little changes rather than lots of big changes that may indicate agressive SEO techniques.

[banchory4x4]

Ok Malcom, I'll do no more for a few weeks just to see what happens with
google.

Cheers

Andy

[pinbrook]

I assume that google will pass by sometime in the near future

By adding a link in your signature on this forum to your site, Google should now pick you up.

Google prefers to find its own way to a site via a site it ranks highly

[banchory4x4]

hi Jo,

Thanks for that snippet of info, and have adjusted my signature to suit.

Andy

[RuralWeb]

I'll do no more for a few weeks just to see what happens

As jo says you should work on getting some links to your website while you wait - DMOZ is the vital one to start with, after that you can go looking for others. But beware only link to related sites - do a search this area has been discussed recently.

Keep checking site: to see when you get back into the index.