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And that is what his keywords, descirption, and title say. And he is ranking #1 in google for his primary keyword. He only has about 6 backward links. So does this mean that less content is good for google?
thanks
[edited by: NFFC at 1:59 am (utc) on Jan. 4, 2003]
[edit reason] Please, no specifics [/edit]
By the way I think you should edit out the URL, live URLs are not allowed in posts.
But what about the content question? is it good to have less content then?
Nope. In general, it's safe to say, the more content the better. One thing to remember is that everyone will tend to pick a "primary keyword" phrase, a lot of potential traffic out there won't choose that exact phrase -- and the more content you have, the more searches you'll match with.
It's easy to get overly focused on one competitive phrase and whatever rankings you can get for it, but the real point is to get traffic, not to "rank first."
[edit: two paragraphs look better than one.]
[edited by: JayC at 2:15 am (utc) on Jan. 4, 2003]
now what will you say?
I'll say 'incoming link anchor text'
probably
I assumed you were refering to the first 2 words of his title. In which case I still say there is not much competition. By that I don't mean few competing pages but I do mean few "well optimised" pages.
If you are trying to rank on one key word that is like chasing the end of the rainbow.
what do you mean by 'incoming link anchor text'
'lack of content' can be overcome by good PR and the key phrase being mentioned in the incoming link text.
ie
An incoming link which says 'keyword 1, keyword 2' is going to be more benefical than a link which says 'click here'
There are some sites that are so content free I can't imagine how they are so high in the serps. Maybe it is incoming link anchor. If so Google needs to give this a second look.
Anne
link anchor text
Actually, in this case most of the links are banner images from a network of nearly-identical sites. But in general the point is a good one. :)
There are some sites that are so content free I can't imagine how they are so high in the serps.
It doesn't take a lot of text to get rankings for a specific term... the biggest advantage of a good amount of text, again, is that it allows you to get rankings for a number of terms. For the term in question, the page being discussed here had a keyword density (using Brett's analyzer) of 20% -- but even speaking generally and not of a specific site, a good keyword density, and the phrase being targeted being the beginning of the page title, and a PageRank higher than that of any of the competing sites will result in good positioning for that search term. There's not really anything mysterious here at all.
There are some sites that are so content free I can't imagine how they are so high in the serps. Maybe it is incoming link anchor. If so Google needs to give this a second look.
Actually annej this is one of the better ways of reducing spam, that is... a individual webmaster/company has only so much control over so many sites/fix number of sites.
The Google spam report take care of the rest that "link farm it" but stay off Google's radar.
Anne
In another thread here, a few people took a look at a site that perplexed me. Rated above me in #3 place (i am now #5), this site had an image only. No content. No links. No spammy stuff. And the keyword, "Widget," was the name of their musical band, but had absolutely nothing to do with widgets at all.
There is no way this site could be in #3 place without the incoming link text containing the word "widget." i could only find one incoming link using "link:" but found at least 300 mentions of the group's title at other sites. i presume many of these were links with matching text.
I guess the question is if this is a case of the engine not working correctly or if it's working fine. If i am looking for the band, and i type "widget" i will find them #3. On the other hand, 99% of the people typing "widget" are not looking for a band called widget., they are looking for information about widgets, and a site with content.
I was thinking of anchor text. I'd hate to see this as a large factor in deciding serps.
Too late anne. It is, and has been for quite some time now. In fact, inbound anchor text is one of the most significant factors in Google's algo. There are thousands of sites that top the SERPs for key phrases based on nothing other than this single fact.
If you doubt me... just do a search for "Google Bombing" and you'll see that this is nothing new at all.
When I follow my backlinks I find that some don't use my title as the link text. I'm not about to write to them and ask then to change it.
I don't mean to come across as being harsh but...
If you're not willing to write them, it's your loss... and your competitor's gain.
My experience is that the vast majority of webmasters are very receptive to changing the anchor text of links that are already on their sites... but you'll never get what you don't ask for.
It is better to appear to have their interest at heart rather than your own. Now... you can request the anchor change providing the exact link anchor (code) you want and they will generally drop it in verbatim.
Works well with deeplinking too, such as another page might be more appropriate to their visits needs than your current mainpage.
In all case the link itself provides something... so breaking the link because "they don't like your tactics" is worse than a bad anchor.
If this is a real possibility... leave them the way they are but go on from here providing the exact code (and link anchors) and you will notice the improvement even after a only few.
This is also the greatest value in link exchanges rather than PageRank... those that exchange links for the sole purpose of building PageRank (and not asking for precise anchors) will wake up one day realizing their past efforts were not as fruitful as they could have been.
Thus annej, leave now from this place and spend my words (anchors) like manure on a freshly sown field.
I always wanted to get that into a post
i have repeated the pphrase in my content too..and it's for the same keyword.
It's not that simple.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems that G overlooks some pages that have the phrase blatantly in the title, first paragraph, repeated more in the body etc.
I've often seen results where a random seeding of the keywords do better:Part of the phrase in the title, part in the body.
Why? Perhaps it depends on the competition. My point however is that you can't seed your page with the keyword phrase and be 100 percent sure that you seeded it correctly, or that you hit a density that makes Google happy.
The other posts here are correct in pointing out that high PR in tandem with good anchors will help. Think about the 100 percent Flash sites that rank for the name of their sites (Often a rock band), and investigate why they rank. You'll see that it's because of the links pointing toward them. But don't take my word for it. Investigate it yourself.
:)
ROFL! ;)
Well seems like I should, it sure helped me when I went to work on getting more links after the October dance. Those links have the text in the link with my actual title. It's the old links that are a problem. I wasn't hesitating to write to them our of laziness but because I thought it might be rude as they were spontaneous links.
I am starting to wonder if I should start exchanging related links. Up till now I have only linked to 'widgeting history' pages. So on occasions I have exchanged but only because it fit my specific topic. If I branch out to exchanging with widgeting sites I could probably add a lot more.
Anne
I look at the value of the link itself (old existing ones). It's not worth the time to contact all since all incoming links do not have the same value (whether that value is pure topic relevancy, number of visitor referrals, or PageRank of the page divided by the number of outgoing links).
A link on a PR6 links page (and the only topic is "links" with 100 other links and your link is close to the bottom... is pretty limited.
Being at the top
Being on a page with only a few other links, or
The page relevancy is near a mirror of yours...
These would be darn good reasons to request the anchor change.
Even if you need to give up say: "the reason" and help those web sites owners out by providing insight the rewards are there.
Viral marketing is a concept rarely put into practice, but soon after as the circle of friends (those you contacted) start to understand this process, they will want the same thing from their linkers, and so on, and quality links with follow without you lifting a finger... referral work as well, since you obviously know things they don't.
Most of the incoming links to my content pages come from internal pages where I control the anchor text. The anchor text is generated using the filename. The pathname of the file is used in the title. I did this all before I knew anything about SEO, because it made enough sense and it was easy enough.
My filenames and directory names contain the important keywords. Using breadcrumbs up through the directory structure gives me outgoing anchor text to many of the keywords.
Do you all really depend on drawing traffic with your top level page? It seems counterintuitive to try and feed the engines with your home page, instead of your content pages. Of course I've just been at this a few months, so I very well could be wrong on the importance of getting good results with your home page.
I never bother with worrying about the text on incoming links to my site. In fact, most sites link to mine with a copy of our logo instead of a text link.
In this case <a href="domain.com/and_page.html" title="page title or theme"><img src=logo.gif" alt="page title or theme"></a> which loosely corresponds to your keyword or keyphrase for the page.
Most of the incoming links to my content pages come from internal pages where I control the anchor text. The anchor text is generated using the filename. The pathname of the file is used in the title. I did this all before I knew anything about SEO, because it made enough sense and it was easy enough.My filenames and directory names contain the important keywords. Using breadcrumbs up through the directory structure gives me outgoing anchor text to many of the keywords.
Sounds good
Do you all really depend on drawing traffic with your top level page? It seems counterintuitive to try and feed the engines with your home page, instead of your content pages. Of course I've just been at this a few months, so I very well could be wrong on the importance of getting good results with your home page.
BigDave agree totally - the link should go to the best match of content. Just like PageRank is referenced by page, links are referenced the same way.
Although just as you have done with breadcrumbs -- all links extend from the main page. A content page deep in your linking structure is unlikely to be the primary theme of your web site, therefore the single most relevant page to all topics of your site is the mainpage.
Mainpage: widgets
Second level: blue widgets or any other color or type
manufacturing widgets
designing widgets
Third level: troubleshooting widgets
Obviously the vast major of links to your site will be to the mainpage just because it envelopes all widgets. General "widgets" links add here.
Sites linking to you though that have specific ties to "blue widgets", "manufacturing" or "designing widgets" have greater relevancy to second level links - I would add here. If your not - you are losing the potential of multiple PageRank transfer points as well as multiple traffic corridors which diversify your advetising ability.
Third level are unlikely to have any inbound (external links) but the internal breadcrumbs link these to hierarchy pages.
[edited by: fathom at 8:35 pm (utc) on Jan. 4, 2003]
I give the seperate manufacturers their own page to link to, that contains links to only the reports on their products. Those also use the filenames as the link text.
While I would likely get more PR from a manufacturer that would link to each report seperately, I prefer this method from a useability and maintenance standpoint. And in reality, it makes it much easier to get them to link to me in the first place.
For deeplinks from other sources, I always make sure that I put in a 301 redirect permanent when I move a file.
With this update, it has given me a remarkably flat PR structure. My home page is PR5, with 2300 pages in the index, my lowest PR page is PR2. Many of the reports 6 levels deep, that have deep links pointing to them are PR3 or PR4, and there are at least 2 that are PR5.
how a page with nothing but links, or a page with nothing but images could possible rank higher than a page that contains, text links, an image and quality content.
The way I understand it, Google's ranking system is based upon the concept of "votes". So, if a great many sites are voting for you (i.e. linking to you), then you theoretically have greater relevance.
Whether this is an accurate measurement of relevance is not at issue here. This is simply the scheme that the Google ranking system is predicated on. These are the rules of the game that Google has laid down.
For instance, ask yourself: What is one of the most likeliest words in a title tag? I would say, "Welcome." Since a search for "Welcome," in my opinion, forces Google's Algo to take factors other than the title tag into consideration (body text, density, H1 tags, etc.), it is of interest to see what the top results are, and to check the cache to see why they are returned at the top. It is because of links (votes) pointing toward them.
To be sure, the results have changed over the last 8 months I have been following them, but not by much.
