PR Rankings and my listing

I need help and advise ove rmy google ranking

[April]

Howdy,

My first post, and I hope someone can show me the light.

I have a website that has been listed fully on google for over 6 months now. The structure of the site is very simple... All pages are .asp but 95% of each is plain old static html, the asp is simply logon info for the users session (if they are logged on). All the members pages are session dependant, and rightly so according to my raw logs google bot does not visit these pages.

The structure of each page is identical, all with unique content - Using light use of frames and layers. For this reason I am confused my my index.asp would have been awarded a PR of 5, and every other page which is not session dependant has PR 0 (Some 50-60 pages). Around 50 of these PR0 pages are listed individually in google and if you search for the persons name whom the page is about, it gets listed highly in google. My issue being, my website is listed on google at around page 22 if you use the most approprite search string, many poor quality sites of PR 0-4 are above me and is slightly frustrating.

Google bot visits my site every day at least once, and a recent experiment I carried out is that if I put a link on my index.asp to a currently unlisted URL, it will be fully indexed on google within 2 mornings!

I can not see why google would love my index, but punish my other pages - They all have quality content, regulary updated and my root url has many quality backlinks, including DMOZ. I designed the site following all advise I could find at the time, and seeing that many of my competitors get 10,000+ uniques a day from high google ranking, im getting a measly 200-300 :(

Any advise would be hugely appreciated,

Regards.

[edited by: Marcia at 1:58 pm (utc) on June 4, 2004]

[robotsdobetter]

Your pages may not have PageRank on the toolbar because Google has not updated it to the toolbar, but that does not mean you don't have PR.

Here a few tips....
1)Build your links up with related sites
2)Create many real Content pages (related to your site)
3)Get a density between 5 and 20%
4)Try to use text more than images.
5) Use your keyword once in the title tag, meta tags, URLs, bold text and use your keyword both high on the page and low.

Here are few things not to do...
1)Stay away from flash and java script
2)Stay away from link farms
3)Don't link to sites that repeat keywords
4)Avoid hidden text or hidden links.
5)Don't create duplicate content.

[glitterball]

I have noticed that the toolbar shows PR0 for all of my internal pages that use querystrings in the URL (on several websites).
Any pages that do not have querystrings in the URL show a normal amount of PR.

If I use one of the external "check your PR without the toolbar" websites, the PR for the pages that use querystrings is normal (PR4 etc).

The strangest thing is that if I search for one of these 'querystring' pages in Google and then click through the link, the Toolbar will show a PR of 4!

If I follow a link on my own website it shows PR0.

[mrclark]

April,

My number 1 tip would really be to refrain from using frames completely and use tables instead.

I have never taken to the use of frames. They can fit in well with some websites but I'd say 99% of the times they are more trouble than they are worth.

If it's possible to use tables then use them. Search engines prefer it this way as well as me :)

Steve

[April]

Hi,

Thanks for your responses, It loosk liek I will try a new site design - A bit drastic but Im desprate for a higher ranking... Thanks a lot :)

April

[CygnusX1]

Don't let your tables get to deep then that also causes problems. {Tables within tables within tables}

[DerekH]

CygnusX1
That's an interesting comment - do you have real evidence for this?

One of my key pages has a table inside a table inside a table and it's doing absolutely fine in the SERPS.
I've no idea why additional opening and closing <table> attributes would make the text on the page any harder to find and to index and I'd certainly like to hear any theories about why you think it might do.

Regards
DerekH

[Marcia]

I've used nested tables as far as 3/4 deep without any problems, but the most important indexable content wasn't within them - just product and ordering info for shopping cart orders.

I have noticed an aberration lately with alt text/text duplication across templated pages in the top table section of pages; that might possibly be a consideration.

One thing for sure: stay away from session IDs no matter what.

[CygnusX1]

Hi DerekH,

About 2 years ago we had 7 of our pages which had a table inside a table inside a table inside a table. I think it was 4 deep if I remember right. We couldn't get any of the 7 pages to get picked up by the search enigines.

Our website wasn't having any trouble with any other pages. Just the 7 with deep tables in them. I found somewhere on this fourm that if tables were too deep that it could trap a spider.

With in 2 weeks of changing the tables so they would not be so deep on a page. All 7 pages were picked up.

I concluded that too deep of tables could indeed trap a spider. Search engines now, have gotten better and deep tables may or may not be a problem anymore, but I wouldn't take any chances.

[DerekH]

Thanks CygnusX1

I've just groped about in one of my sites and found tables nested four deep, and I can find text in the innermost cell doing a Google search.

This neither proves nor disproves anything, I realise, because over the years, I've seen counterexamples to every theory, even when others can provide really compelling evidence!

Your note of caution is probably a very wise one until others can vote for or against!
DerekH

[jackson992]

I thought it was strange that I saw someone say not to repeat your keyword. To me this is good SEO. I try to repeat my keyword at least 3 times in my title

[robotsdobetter]

I thought it was strange that I saw someone say not to repeat your keyword. To me this is good SEO. I try to repeat my keyword at least 3 times in my title

I am talking about my my my my my my, like that. If you were talking to me that's what I was saying.

[mrclark]

Are we talking <title> tag here? - 3 times?

[robotsdobetter]

No, we are talking about the <body> tag or you could call it the text on the page.

[mrclark]

I'd say it would be better to have it once, maybe twice in your title and then have sub-titles further down the page.

I find that trying to include keywords too many times can look ugly.

Steve

[trillianjedi]

I find that trying to include keywords too many times can look ugly.

Ugly and spammy.

Try using google's own semantics (the tilde symbol) to find keywords that are related to topic.

Try a search for "~widget". Google will embolden all words in title/URL and description that relate to the keyword "widget".

You can use that to expand your coverage in google without having to stuff the word "widget" everywhere.

Assuming a keyword of "elephant", consider:-

Large Mammals : Elephant

versus

Elephants : Elephant

I haven't actually checked to see if google has clocked that an elephant is a large mammal, but you get the picture.

TJ

[jackson992]

Here is an example of what I try:

Say the keyword is CD Display Cases

title tag: CD Display Cases: Buy CD Display Cases: Purchase CD Display Cases From Domainname

I also put this same line as my header

[trillianjedi]

Google knows that a "CD" is a "Compact Disc".

My point is, you can utilise google's semantics to make your titles look less like spam.

I wouldn't recommend using a keyword three times in a title, I always stick to two. And with semantics, I use one of each now. It has neither helped, nor caused a drop, in any of my rankings, but my pages read so much better.

TJ