Looking at sites higher in the serps

trying to learn from sites that do well

[annej]

I've been studying the sites above me on my best single keyword. Site #6 is an animated graphic with no actual text on the page at all. The keyword is one of three words in the page title. The keyword in the title is written like this, *widgeting*, in fact the title says

<TITLE>t h e * w i d g e t i n g * p l a c e</TITLE> with the spaces like that.

The keyword is not in the domain name or anywhere in the URL.

There are few links and none with a PR over 5.

What can I learn from this? Am I putting too much text on my entry page? The page is so different from how we have discussed that a page should be to do well with Google.

Anne

[aek]

Has the site in question got links to it with the main keyword in the anchor text if so then that is probably why it ranks so well. However if not then it seems strange.

[annej]

It does have a few links, one PR5, most lower. But still to be 6th out of 310,000 seems strange.

I found another that was basically java, graphics and a very small amount of text but none with the keyword in it. This one does have a good many links though so with plenty of links I guess just having the key word in the title tags is enough. I do have a higher PR and still rank lower which I guess shows PR isn't enough. And of course I have the key word in the title plus in the page text.

It's all a mystery to me other than the fact that it seems to be very important to have key words in the title.

Anne

[Chronos]

AnneJ
Have you looked at their code? I have a competitor that the the key phrase doesn't show up on the page at all and they're #1. When I looked at the html of their page I found that with alt tags and things like that they repeatedly stuffed the key phrase everywhere in the code so they got a great page rank. Very few words and half of the words the spider could see were the keyphrase. Sneaky SEO tricks is what you can learn from them.

:)

[jimbeetle]

I'd also look to see if the page might happen to be in a keyword-stuffed frameset. A lot of my big competitors use this technique (trick) to target a specific niche and then just show the visitor their regular home page.

[annej]

How do you check for that? I looked and didn't see any hidden key words on that page. I just tried to select words so they would show up. I know I am pretty limited technically but that is all I know how to do. ;) I have never built a site with frames so I don't really understand framesets.

Anne

[jimbeetle]

Anne,

Just right click "Properties" and see if the url address matches the one in your address bar. If it doesn't you can try to right click on the very thin grey page window border that runs under the address bar or along the left edge to view the source of the frameset. Or do a "Save as..."

Jim

[Chronos]

You can also check the cache on the Google to see if the page matches. I could be a re-direct or spider food page.

To check the HTML code click the view button at the top of the browser window and then source.

[MeditationMan]

Because of their title, a lot of the linking sites use "widgeting" in the anchor text. That will give them a big boost in relevance.

[jimbeetle]

It is a frameset. Index.html loads indexa.html. But there isn't anything blatant going on, just simple keywords and description. No <noframes> tag with a lot of text or links. Nada.

There are 3 instances of "widgeting," 1 in the title and the other 2 are in window.status calls. MeditationMan is right, it must be those "I am a Widgeting Bee member" links that do it.

It's still wierd though. We all try to and do get links with our key words in them. If all it takes is having them point to a basically blank page we should have it made.

Must be the competitiveness of the keyword.

[annej]

>>Must be the competitiveness of the keyword.<<

I don't think so when it's listed #6th out of 310,000. Plus widgeting is really big time on the net, a lot of interest in it.

I agree that something really strange is going on. I don't know, maybe it's those racy widgeting bees that get the big time attention. ;)

Anne

[fathom]

If a site has many, many low PR pages pointing to it - this isn't immediately apparent in Google.

Needless to say... you don't need to do anything yourself "good or bad" to get stop ranked positions, all you need is others believing your site offers something that benefits their site.

[Hardwood Guy]

"I have a competitor that the the key phrase doesn't show up on the page at all and they're #1."

Being new to all this I thought this was considered a form of spam? I know I read this somehwere but can't recall where. Maybe it had something to do with keywords or what was in the title bar?

[fathom]

Adobe is #1 out of 331 million competitive pages with >> free << written once on the page.

Some pages can be based on "spam" techniques but if investigating "off-page" content like link anchors you may find that the page has alot of support.

[snowfox121]

Fathom

That makes sense when you look at the Adobe page that is cached #1. Free Acrobat Reader. Millions of people put links on their sites pointing to the AR page. i know, because i am one of them. And probably most of the sites pointing to Adobe do what i do, put the word "free" in close proximity to the link.

[fathom]

It is a bit extreme: but it illustrates a page with no mention of a word or phrase can still be highly ranked without being spam.

You really need to investigate thoroughly since spam isn't always what you can immediately see.

[annej]

The more I look at it I think it is just kids goofing around. I can't figure out what they did, but it was something or the other to get way up there in the serps. At this point it's just a curiosity to me.

Anne