Google search issues

[madboyo]

The following search in Google reveals weird results.

If I search for "leo vince fast box" without quotes as per http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en...ryUK|countryGB

I get the following page

http://www.mxbits.com/acatalog/Perfo...Leo_Vince.html


rather than getting the page below:

http://www.mxbits.com/acatalog/Perfo..._Fast_Box.html


We've been experimenting with page names, page titles, meta names, meta descriptions etc.

Has anyone got any ideas on what is happening either with the way Actinic builds pages for the search engines or what Google is doing and why it returns the results it does?

[Darren B]

I aint got a clue about SEO but i would say the page it gives you has lots of references to Leo Vince and the fast box is also on that page.

So it is more relevant as the name appears lots of times. Go's against googles SPP idea though

[grantglendinnin]

Indeed. Pretty much exactly as Darren put it.

And 'Awaiting PO Box'????????

Not only should an online store never have a PO Box as the contact address, but not displaying any address whatsoever?? IMO you shouldn't have received a single order with that address, if you have - more fool your customers.

[madboyo]

Indeed. Pretty much exactly as Darren put it.

And 'Awaiting PO Box'????????

Not only should an online store never have a PO Box as the contact address, but not displaying any address whatsoever?? IMO you shouldn't have received a single order with that address, if you have - more fool your customers.

Ok well apart from being off topic

There were what we believed to be valid reasons for doing such.

1) P.O. Box allows us to move the business which we have done with absolutely no knock on effects to our customers. Admittedly we need to add that into the site now.

2) By not broadcasting our actual address we maintain a high level of invisibility as being a relatively niche sport there are more burglarys made on shops of this kind.

3) If you do a whois on the domain name you actually get an address.

[Mike Hughes]

As above AND maybe because the link from the first page to the second one is broken, causing Google some indexing problems.

Mike

[Rich Brady]

If you do a whois on the domain name you actually get an address.

Which most day to day user will not be aware of (unless they read this post), but thieves probably do, so you're only alienating potential customers.

One of my clients insisted on a PO Box address and didn't want a contact number shown (business ran from their home). They want me to come in next week, because they don't feel they're making as many sales as they should.

[madboyo]

As above AND maybe because the link from the first page to the second one is broken, causing Google some indexing problems.

Mike

Damn why is it you can never see your own mistakes!

I would have expected Google to have indexed the correct page independently of the broke link on the other page surely?

[grantglendinnin]

When you hear about 'Online Sales' on the news, what's it most likely about? Fraud. Or more recently, the recession.

PO BOX = Screams out fraud to me (and everyone else). No name, no address, no physical location, the list of disadvantages is endless.

With regards to being for the purpose of safety from burglaries, that's what insurance is for.

Honestly, publish a physical location. Pro burglars are smarter than you and everyone else around here, otherwise they'd all be in the nick by now. Have a read of this - quite an inspiring story from John.

[madboyo]

When you hear about 'Online Sales' on the news, what's it most likely about? Fraud. Or more recently, the recession.

PO BOX = Screams out fraud to me (and everyone else). No name, no address, no physical location, the list of disadvantages is endless.

With regards to being for the purpose of safety from burglaries, that's what insurance is for.

Honestly, publish a physical location. Pro burglars are smarter than you and everyone else around here, otherwise they'd all be in the nick by now. Have a read of this - quite an inspiring story from John.

And in what way do you think the story about Stinkyink is relevant? All that article said was make your site in actinic and get betters results. Oh and by the way be careful other there!

We have overseas customers. One of which is in South Africa and because we couldn't believe he would shop with us rather than locally given motocross has a fairly good market position in SA we decided to check him out. We got home, work addresses, we checked that he was an employee and the said business was legit etc etc etc.

[madboyo]

Damn why is it you can never see your own mistakes!

I would have expected Google to have indexed the correct page independently of the broke link on the other page surely?

and to carry on from this I have just looked at the Google stats.

Google have referenced the new page as it's listed specifically on one of the pages. What does appear to be happening with this product and some others is that it appears to be taking the first reference it can find in the site map rather than the correct page. e.g. The link that show the fastbox ignition in with the exhausts is approx 32 lines higher than the actual page. The same is true for some of the other products now we've started digging a bit more.

Any ideas about this behaviour?

[grantglendinnin]

Unfortunately - I don't even know your name - this is a community for those using Actinic, both developers and shop owners. I'm only trying to help just as everyone else is. Sure, everybody enjoys the casual banter - but at the end of the day the work has to get done to get the sales online.

In my opinion, you shouldn't be worrying about burglaries. If your business use the recommended level of security, and have the place insured then there's no worries - yes, it's a pain in the arse if your place gets robbed, but hey, that's business. The company opposite us have been broken into 3 times in the last year and lost well over £100k in stock - their insurance has always saved their asses.

Consumers like to know that when they buy online they are buying from a company with a physical location - for all they know you could be a 14 year old kid selling stolen pieces from your bedroom with your parents sleeping next door. The reality is far from that - but this definitely puts it into perspective - you need to assure buyers, not give them reasons to go elsewhere.

[acompton]

And in what way do you think the story about Stinkyink is relevant? All that article said was make your site in actinic and get betters results.

Did you read the whole article? Even the last section about the burglary? it seems relevant to me.

[Mike Hughes]

and to carry on from this I have just looked at the Google stats.

Google have referenced the new page as it's listed specifically on one of the pages. What does appear to be happening with this product and some others is that it appears to be taking the first reference it can find in the site map rather than the correct page. e.g. The link that show the fastbox ignition in with the exhausts is approx 32 lines higher than the actual page. The same is true for some of the other products now we've started digging a bit more.

Any ideas about this behaviour?

Link structure, pagerank and anchor text or all off page factors that will determine how well a page ranks in Google.

You shouldn't be relying on links in the sitemap. Important pages should be linked to directly from the home page and the fewer steps in the navigation to that page the better.

Mike

[RuralWeb]

Full Name: Never! Company Name: Never! NEVER answer

[bamboo]

As far as anybody knows the search algorithm goes along a line of text known as a page title looking for the first words entered in the keyword string.

So in your search example leo vince fast box it's looking for correaltion with leo then vince then fast then box. As fast and box are none specific words that appear in many peoples page titles it seems to lend more 'weight' to leo & vince.

As it goes through the first page you list it finds 17 instances of the leo vince combination in the page body 9 of which are bolded.

As it goes through the second page it finds 3 instances of the leo vince combination in the page body 3 of which are bolded.

So in this instance Googles algorithm ranks the first page higher because it appears to be more relevant to the search string.

This is just my opinion as in common with everyone else I can only guess based on the evidence what Googles algorithm actually does.

I would suggest you make the leo vince exhausts SPP and then you should see the leo vince fast box appearing above the leo vince exhausts page for the search string 'leo vince fast box'.