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My site has a higher/similar PR as other sites.
More (much more) backlinks than my competitors.
Ranking #2 when searching for allintitle.
#5 when searching for allinanchor
and #6 for allintext.
However, ranking in the SERPs only #23 and slowly dropping.
Does it have anything to do with numbers of visitors? Keyword Density? As you understand I optimized title, text, links, keywords, etc.
On what more should I focus? Am I forgetting something?
But what do you mean by a web map? And 'well spread out'? I am trying to link on topic. That's ok? Mostly linking to similar and competing sites.
Since I have hundreds of backlinks from sites that I manage myself, that is easily done.
That's possibly your problem. Google is very clever like that. Try getting some genuine backlinks from sites not within your control.
2_much means don't have the same or very similar anchor text for all your backlinks - spread the love out a little bit amongst your various keywords. Pick on new keywords from looking through your stats and see how people arrive at your site. Then build pages around those keywords. Lots of them.
TJ
I would agree with that one! Sounds like you have some link removing to do Wired_Suzanne.
When you have done that, approach the people that link to your competitors ;-)
Sometimes I forget about those basic things, doing all that KW density and backlink analysis. :)
I noticed that my site ranks not that well under a keyword that I used about 130 times as anchor.
However, I'm #1 under another keyword that only ONE linking partner uses as anchor to link to my site.
How does Google know?
I think I know your sites, given your location (does the number 24 or the name Bruno mean anything to you?).
Are these duplicate content sites pretty much? If so, it may be too late. But if I am right, it sounds like an algo has "caught" you rather than a full penalty by a Google Spam Detective! If so, you may be lucky, and you may escape the blacklist if you act now and drop the cross linking. It may just be a case that the Google algo has determined engineered link text, and downgraded your relevancy. I would suggest you change the link text, but if I am right about which are your sites, I would be surprised if there are not a lot of Spam complaints about them already, which may negate anything you can do to save them if you get blacklisted for duplicate content.
The tendency is always to follow what has worked in the past....and that will get you the Google uppercut because they became a little wiser.
Cross link all you want.....but use different anchor text, different page layouts and possibly different hosts...although I don't see firm evidence to support the latter...it probably makes good sense just incase they start tracing IP blocks or domain owners.
Look at virtually any commercial site for a given keyword and they will have "duplicate" content. If they are different site owners, I think Google sees that like anyone else as fair game / competition.
The problem comes when you have one player trying to monopolize search results, or just through as much at the wall hoping some will stick, with multiple sites. There is a thin line, and where that line is may not be easy / permanent. Google, for example, has duplicate content sites, .com, .co.th, etc. Someone might sell blue widgets from one supplier on one site, and more blue widgets from another supplier on another. Is that duplicate content? Well yes, but no.
For me, and I hope most others, duplicate content is the same stuff (product, price, supplier) on multiple sites by the same person. If you suspect sites of this, try doing a whois and traceroute (I use visualroute). If you can tie sites together (bluewidgetssales.com buybluewidgets.com), especially if they cross link, especially if they target link exchanges for the same keyphrases, and especially if they have IDENTICAL paragraphs of text (remember, some disclaimers have legally to be worded a certain way, so this might not always apply). Then report them. But make sure you have a clear and short case. And make sure they are really Spamming it, not just doing what most, even Google do.
Do you really think this is appropriate / applied now?
Bruno does not say anthing to me. Also the number 24. I'm not sure where you think that I am located. But I guess you have the wrong sites in your mind.
Anyway. I will see what I can do with my anchors. Our sites are a network. So we have to interlink them somehow. Or is that already spamming?
What about Google then? google.com and google.co.uk and google.ca and google.it and google.de etc are all interlinked too, right?
Google has a very strong algo in finding the relationships
between words, something similar will get you down more than 1 path to the end result... always wins!
...So we have to interlink them somehow...
Java script the the links.
No worries - glad you are not :-) I looked at your profile for your location.
Google don't cross link though. Sure, if you are on a virgin (never visited Google before) PC in Thailand, you will automatically go to Google.co.th when you type google.com into your browser address line, and they provide a link to google.com in case you don't want .co.th. And sure, when you go to google.com in Thailand, there is also a link to google.co.th, this is all dynamic, and determined by your IP address.
But this is not cross linking per say. And once your search results get served up, there are no other google.whatever options.
If you are on a network, this implies behind the scenes. But what you have spoken about implies cross linking sites on multiple pages. If this is further extended to cross linking sites that are targetted for the same keywords, then you may well have the problem I think you have.
If you are cross linking sites with different content, I would say "great, that should help". If you are cross linking same same sites, don't. And don't replace with JavaScript either now, as there is evidence that Google is looking at JS code. Looking implies looking for Spam, as many Spammers use JS for his purpose. I think you need to sit down, make a graph of your sites, and make sure you do not link up in a network more than two sites on ham, as this may well be seen as Spam.
Also, there may be a penalty or dampening for sites that link many, many times to each other. But I think this would only apply if there are too many of the same same again.
Thanks so much for yor help! This Google-thing is all abracadabra to me. I guess you know in what business I am. But lets say I sell widgets. I have a site on Green Widgets and a site on Blue Widgets and a site on Beautiful Green Widgets.
My site has a kind of navigation bar on top with tabs. Looking like linking to different sections in the site. However, when you click on a tab, you are not going to a new section, but to a whole new domain.
So, all sites are interlinked from the indexpage.
Am I lucky that I'm still indexed in Google or is my method correct? Would changing the anchor text in my 'navigation bar' help?
Is it ok to anchor these tabs/links with 'Green Widgets', 'Blue Widgets', 'Beautiful Green Widgets', etc.
Ok. I see. No, we are the other one....
And I see that that site has a gray bar now. Haven't seen it around in a while too.
I did not say I have filed any reports myself, but I suspect other people do (I try and reserve myself for the real Spammers, because if you cry "wolf" to Google each time and they know who you are, they will ignore you when the big bad wolf actually arrives and you scream for help). This other company, I have warned them (they send me Spam emails trying to get me to work with them), they are taking it too far and it will do them no good. They have hundreds of sites for the same thing. But because their SEO is so poor, they all rank badly pretty much anyway. Except for one particular domain, which I saw slide a little (which is why I thought you may be them).
OK, your question;
You know, sites for;
Blue Widgets
Green Widgets
Great Green Widgets
Is starting to be too many widgets sites in my book. I think this is (quite rightly) your problem. Why do you need (at least) 2 sites about Green Widgets?! A green widgets site with a sub directory for Great Green Widgets is what surfers want. Sorry, I think you have made the Spam and are now facing the can! I think Mr. Algo has caught you, and my worry (if I were you) would be if you have a lot of widgets sites cross linked, and whether Mr. Algo has reported you to his friend the Google Spam Cop!
You act very coy and innocent saying "This Google-thing is all abracadabra to me" and then follow this up with what for me is the all telling statement; "My site has a kind of navigation bar on top with tabs. Looking like linking to different sections in the site. However, when you click on a tab, you are not going to a new section, but to a whole new domain."
You clearly recognize these different areas should be sections of the same site, yet you have made them separate domains. Why? I think because you hoped this would help you. But I think you have just potentially rendered these domains liable for the old grey / gray list. That's the one where Google puts sites and can claim they have been indexed with PR and all (to avoid complaints and frivalous law suits), but somehow fail to ever make the top positions!
I still don't think that it is SPAM to have tabs to different domains.
Now branding becomes a big thing, I have to admit, that this might not be very smart. Google now thinks that it is better for customers to have one domain with a brand name and put all sections in that domain.
However, not long ago, everything was focussed on the keywords. We have domains for all kinds of widgets. Now, these are interlinked to make branding easier.
This is not done for SE's but for our customers. Only recently we found the importance of anchor text and now I'm wondering if I should change my tabs to show the search term.
"Google now thinks that it is better for customers to have one domain "
I was not aware they ever thought any different.
"I still don't think that it is SPAM to have tabs to different domains."
In your stated example, I do. But what I and you think is not so relevant. It is what Google thinks. And a site that links to other domains rather than sub-directories within that site, is, well, IMHO why I think you are having a problem right now.
So if i have my main site as widgets.com and i have green.widgets.com, great.green.widgets.com, and purple.widgets.com is that treated the same way as multiple domains linking to one another?
I don't like it when Google penalizes for things that could very well be legit, because of spammers.
Back in the say of keyword oriented domains (such as what Wired_Suzanne was speaking about) it would make great sense to divide domains into purplewidgets.com, greenwidgets.com, etc, and link to all them based on what the user wants.
Learning about a limitation that has been placed on ALL users who are interested in SEO with Google makes me want to go out and strangle a spammer.
Wired_Suzanne- How is the weather in Thailand, im traveling over there in a week :)
Bek
