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As a web design company we've always put a link to ourselves on every page of every site we build (right next the the copyright info at the bottom). Until now we've always formatted it this way:
Copyright © 2003 Client Name ¦ Created by Widget Web Design..With the words 'Widget Web Design' as the link back to our site.
'Web Design' happens to be part of the company name, but are we supposed to change our link strategy now because web design is a commercial term?
Any ideas?
Posted by Marcia
sparticus same thing here, I've been tempted to start a thread to see what web designers were experiencing.
Well, I was thinking about it too, Marcia ;)
Our Particular Situation
Our company, for various reasons, uses the "Website Design - Widget Media" at the bottom of the webpages that we create for clients. Plain text, nothing special.
During Florida, we dropped from page 1 of the SERPs to page 17 or so, for several keywords.
Referrals from Google are down 50%. We, along with about 40 other design firms in the city, dropped like a bag of ball bearings.
What I've Noticed
We're not the only ones.
Take the keywords "web design" and add any city/state/province to the beginning or the end (example - "web design calgary"). Take a good look at the results for your area.
I'm not referring to the "relevence" of these results, I'm just curious to know if other web design companies have noticed a complete overhaul of the SERPs in their markets?
Is there a corrilation between the anchor text a design company uses and the current Google results?
I'd love to hear from the other designers out there.
Thanks..
Please note: this thread is not to intended as a complaint form for the current Google results.
I'm not referring to the "relevence" of these results, I'm just curious to know if other web design companies have noticed a complete overhaul of the SERPs in their markets?During Florida, we dropped from page 1 of the SERPs to page 17 or so, for several keywords.
Referrals from Google are down 50%. We, along with about 40 other design firms in the city, dropped like a bag of ball bearings.
Yes, :( we've experienced the same thing, many of our competitors have been dropped, while we're not buried as deep as we were initially, we're still not anywhere near where we were. Traffic has dropped significantly.
Like many design firms, our clients that found us online searched for our service in our city/region. Now potential clients see information for design related meet-ups, 3+ yr. old job postings on old forums, newspaper articles, amazon books about design, and a local art gallery. In addition, the nice synergy between the serps and adwords has also been impacted for the negative from our standpoint.
LisaB
There's alot of very annoyed web designers out there.
Whilst I suspect that Google are not shaking in their shoes about this, a reputation can be a fragile thing.
I read complaints about serps containing too many blogs, message boards, out-dated news items, the list read the same where ever I went - and that's the truth.
There's been some question about whether users will eventually go elsewhere for their results. I've read a few articles and posts in the past few days that suggest exactly this. Apparently it started awhile ago, but seems to be steamrolling with this last update.
Look at it this way... Google was built (in part) by referrals of those in the know (us for one) and word of mouth. So start referring people elsewhere for relevant results. This obviously isn't a short term solution, but the court of public opinion weighs heavily in Googles mind. We, as "those in the know" are the natural starting point to sway that court and gain some kind of (albeit minimal) respect in big G's eyes.
If everybody actually did this and screamed to raise awareness and big G saw even a SLIGHT drop in search traffic... they'd think twice about the next update. They may not ask us for approval, but they'd likely consider how mad they're gonna make us.
The only problem now is that there is no-one else to recommend. We can all (most us anyway) remeber when Altavista started giving out bad results - as soon as Google came along, we recommended it to everyone we knew.
It will happen again.
[edited by: WebGuerrilla at 8:54 pm (utc) on Dec. 2, 2003]
[edited by: edayle at 7:54 pm (utc) on Dec. 2, 2003]
Take a good look at the results for your area.I'm not referring to the "relevence" of these results, I'm just curious to know if other web design companies have noticed a complete overhaul of the SERPs in their markets?
It's not only the deterioriated quality of the local search for web design, but how it affects people in that line of business is that they're liable to have to change how they do business entirely if they want to adapt. What that would take is completely incompatible with how the bulk of the sector has traditionally functioned.
It's no secret what city I'm in. I've been getting Ink at Yahoo for over a week and after checking there and all the other search engines have no doubt that most local searchers for web design will have to be turning to other search engines for choices - or the print Yellow Pages.
It's plain that this can have profound effects on this particular industry and *can't* go un-noticed by local businesses - and ultimatly where they search. Check any city we're *not* in that we know of. How about san antonio. How about san diego. How useful are those to searchers?
It so happens that looking at this industry is helpful to see part of what's happened with this update.
[edited by: Marcia at 8:34 pm (utc) on Dec. 2, 2003]
Please note: this thread is not to intended as a complaint form for the current Google results.
Please let's not stray here, let's stay with what's happening with web design firms.
Thanks Marcia :)
We've been in business for one year, designed maybe a dozen sites and helped out on a few others.
We have roughly 35 links back to us that we control. It just so happens that our sector isn't so competative, and I've been able to spread those links out with different phrases, all variations on 'web design $country', 'web design $province' and other things. We haven't lost any places and have several #1 spots, as before ;-] (and thank you, WebmasterWorld)
So maybe now there is a magic backlink threshold that needs to be found. In a way this is good, find that threshold and start spreading the links around different phrases. First one who gets it right wins all the prizes!
[edited by: mipapage at 8:40 pm (utc) on Dec. 2, 2003]
When examining with the filters off, roughly half a dozen sites reappear.
Our site has it's share of external links as well.
you were being brilliant, without even knowing you were!
If it hasn't yet, I guess I'll really find out when the hammer drops on us!
Is there a corrilation between the anchor text a design company uses and the current Google results?
I'm convinced of it. For one thing, I've seen another type of site hit for doing what I believe some design firms are getting hit for. I know, because it belongs to me and I'm the one that did it. ;)
In the case of the cloaked sites coming up for searches it's hard to know, but when you think about it, those can do better than actual design sites because they're not "conducting business" like design companies are, so they won't necessarily run into the same filters.
Let's not even get into whining or "moralizing" about cloaking. It happens to be helpful in principle to know that those are indicating some degree of immunity, so it *needs* to be mentioned if we're to have any kind of meaningful analysis because it's giving an important clue we need to have.
But for the real sites where what we see is what we get that actually are on topic, I believe anchor text has a lot to do with it.
Partly it's inbound anchor text, coupled with company names, imho. Cityname Web Design Associates is what will go into anchor text on all client pages, unless they're to change their business model and company name to suit Google. Or do a "click here" which won't fly on client pages. It's one of the marketing tools that's traditionally part of the design/graphics industry - so we don't even need to debate it, that's not the issue is here. Getting put into Google purgatory by filter traps because of it is the issue.
A major issue is copyright and standard credit given as industry tradition. It's just part of the business and is perfectly normal. We can see that by reading materials at GAG - Graphic Artists Guild, which is a union. Site theft is
not as uncommon as it should be.
Another part is internal back-links to the homepage or navigation links among interior pages, which can easily match up with a lot of what the inbound anchor text is. It's very easy to slip into over-kill without even thinking about it. Put those two together and a site can easily go over the top and trip a filter.
Then there's linking from client sites - whether it involves IP number or hosting arrangements or both. It's quite common for web designers to host client sites, or personal sites of their own - and often very necessary. That could be a factor as well - but theoretically, may not be isolated from the links from the client or other personal sites.
It's my belief that a lot of web designers are getting hit for nothing more than what's standard industry practices unique to the industry. That's not to say some folks aren't being hit for over-kill and/or any number of other things.
Bottom line is that it's not a matter of "judgment" or right or wrong, it's a matter of trying to identify what's causing the ranking problems and figuring out how to deal with them.
To tell you the truth, I would imagine that you are right, although I have this feeling that using different phrases in our backlinks was useful.
mipapage, are you linking from the interior pages of your design site back to your home page with the keyphrase in anchor text?
Are the client sites hosted on the same server, or with the same IP number?
For links from client sites, you're using different "areas" but is web design included with them all as part of the anchor text?
To make sure - are you linked to from all the pages on your client sites or just the homepages?
[edited by: Marcia at 11:31 pm (utc) on Dec. 2, 2003]
It's my belief that a lot of web designers are getting hit for nothing more than what's standard industry practices unique to the industry
It does seem that way.
Another part is internal back-links to the homepage or navigation links among interior pates, which can easily match up with a lot of what inbound anchor text is.
I've been wondering about this myself. How do you label your links when what you do is what seems to be push you into purgatory? What about page names, another whammy? Wish there were some solid answers.
LisaB
mipapage, are you linking from the interior pages of your design site back to your home page with the keyphrase in anchor text?
Hmmm... Nope, though I used to back in January, working late one night (imaging that, a web designer working late) I thought about it and it made me nervous, so I chopped that out - we were doing well then too.
Are the client sites hosted on the same server, or with the same IP number?
Same server, same IP. All of our clients. However we have some newer ones who'll be getting dedicated hosting. Thanks goodness, I don't like the way things are right now, though we're doing really well for PR these days.
For links from client sites, you're using different "areas" but is web design included with them all as part of the anchor text?
Hmm.. for some yes, others no - we cover three languages, so some of the links are in French, others in Spanish. But I suppose that all of the English, French, and Spanish sites link to us with 'web design' (appropriate language) in them - so yes.
To make sure - are you linked to from all the pages on your client sites or just the homepages?
Home pages on some, buried in the site map on others, and on all pages of our latest (I've got to fix that!).
consistant anchor text in the footer of hundreds of sites is the leading culprit.
it is truly a shame.
Chicago, how's the internal linking on your site, which is exactly what I'm looking at right now? How about IP numbers and the hosting situation?
In fact, their site offers very similar services to ours, (including SEO). They have the same PR and the site even has a similar design.
However, in terms of backlinks, Google says they have about 1100, whereas we have about 350. AllTheWeb says we have over 8000, while they have about 2000.. Maybe there's a clue in there.
Either way, if I do a search for 'web design my country -mt-tb.cgi' we come up number 5 and they are 2.
*shrug*
after years atop the serps our shop was hit hard by florida. so too, were all our competitors.
consistant anchor text in the footer of hundreds of sites is the leading culprit.it is truly a shame.
We are all hit similarly I imagine. We too have a location in our domain (outside of the USA) that sits as part of our company branded tail on thousands of pages.
The reality I believe is that we are part of a side effect - rather than the actual target of these filters. We have seen huge abuse of anchor text in our travel regional sites. This filter was aimed directly at these operators.
Like all change we will have to work around it and look at a simple solution.
With regard to IP addresses and servers I have not seen too much that indicates that this is a real issue. We were hit as bad as the next web developer and host from 4 separate geographic networks across the globe on many more IP's. I think that this is about a simple filter - not sinster technology in the algo.
/Wayne
dead celebrity's family
LisaB
Post Florida?
Nothing changed. Didn't move in the SERPs. I've got laziness at text links for this site. OK, truth is, I put them up while I was on my 4th or 5th beer. I call it the "Six-Pack Linking Strategy".
With my "SPLS", I just don't give a crap about what the links say. I make up stuff that sounds reasonable at the time. Maybe I'm listening to "Sting" singing "Be Still My Beating Heart", so I link to my site with: "Scott's Ocean of Search Engine Stuff". Listening to U2? "Scott's Pride of the Web".
im just a dumb bear though, what do i know.
(While not exactly whinging here I'm a bit irritated that one site has the top three spots on our regional web design search. I'd say they probably deserve the top spot and that's fair enough, but it's not fair that Google lists three of their pages up there. And it's not like it's really their fault either. After that there are a couple of regionally focused directories, then two or three web design companies that are not located anywhere in our region but have a long list of every place in the country at the end of all their pages... and then it's between us and a couple of other companies who keep nudging up and down in the same few places.)
As it happens even though we're on the first page for the regional search we'd don't do much work from inside the region and most of our stuff comes from outside - so the regional search doesn't do much for us anyway. Almost all the local work comes from local print ads or recommendations.
We have one text link back to our home page from the home page of every site we produce. I'd never even consider dropping the links back to us from the sites we design or host as that's where a lot of our new clients come from. And I'm not dropping the bit that says "web design" - that's what we do and Google isn't going to make us shy about it! I'd rather keep the links - which produce new paying clients - than lose them just to please Google.
sparticus and marcia, as a web designer i am experiencing the same.
funny thing about my "web design countryname" search is ..1) 4 out of 10 sites that are at top have descriptions from ALT tags .. which are stuffed heavily. Its just funny how ALT tag is being considered for the top position. the 1st two SERPS have the exact same descriptions, word to word. So possibly one of them is spam of the other, but its almost as if google found the right combination of words and listed them at top .. sites i am talking about are PR5 and 6 .. mine is 7 and i am listed on the 4th page.
2) secondly, a site has 5 listings on the 1st page itself .. the sub-domain, the parent domain, the internal page, 2 other spam / door way pages. Its disheartning to see other people get away like that.
from here [webmasterworld.com...]
[edited by: Marcia at 12:36 am (utc) on Dec. 4, 2003]
[edit reason] Made link to other thread clickable. [/edit]
Back to web design...
I hesitate to say it but have not been affected and I think for a similar reason to ScottM's varied backlinks - except that with us they are multilingual going back to a multilingual page.
(NB Another page on the site has been affected for a related phrase, thus the icy fingers of whatever it is have definitely reached this site.)
Here's what I find interesting about my site and rankings.
1. I have optimized for mycity web design and have suffered a huge downgrade in rank. Was in top 10 and now I can't even find my link in the SERPs. I also have internal and external links to my site that have mycity web design in as the anchor text.
2. I searched for "mycity web" (without quotes) and I'm #3. So there's got to be something in to the anchor text and relating it back to the website.
3. My secondary search terms are mycity search engine optimization, which was not affected and currently ranks #1. The same goes for mycity email and other secondary terms that I use. But, they point to internal pages within my site - not my homepage.
I wonder if the fact that so many of us are having problems with the ranking results of our homepages, that it comes into the equation with respect (or disrespect) to Florida? If Google is after relevance and I'm honest about what I do - I'm a web designer in mycity. And, yes I've got that famous singer's site too.
CG
I searched for "mycity web" (without quotes) and I'm #3. So there's got to be something in to the anchor text and relating it back to the website.
But "mycity web" is also repeated in your anchor text.
"mycity web" does not contain any competitive terms, or at least anything likely to tigger a filter. "mycity web design" does - "web design"
Try "mycity web INSERT design ", replacing INSERT with any random word on your page. I bet you're back on top again.
[webmasterworld.com...]
The one thing I didn't mention in that thread is after the Florida update, when I clicked on my directory listing from the SERPS, my site wasn't listed there. The directory appeared to be an old listing for my region (from over a year ago).
Now that the google directory has been updated (HAS been moved and fine tuned) I AM showing up under a different regional category, but my directory listing in the SERPS is still the old no longer in existence category.
?
1/ Have you noticed that some web companies use anchor text that includes a phrase title="Web Design Company" or similar in their a href tag. Is this a good idea? (I have found several web design companies that still rank well in Google that use this method). They do however seem to use a variety of terms for the link text of their backward link..
2/ Has anyone considered ditching text based backward links and replacing them with image based backward links? Do you think this would have any benefits, or negative effects re ranking position..
Considering anchor text is still clearly the most important algorithm ingredient this is like asking if suicide would have negative effects.
