SEO Paranoia question

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SEO Paranoia question

Doing SEO alterations for a client that already ranks high...

switchWRX

2:52 pm on Feb 6, 2004 (gmt 0)

I am about to start a SEO project for a client that is already ranked very high (top 5) in most of the popular search engines. ie. google, alltheweb, yahoo. But they are somewhat lower (top 10) in others such as: MSN, askjeeves and altavista. They are wanting to improve their current ranking in both areas.

After a preliminary analyis of their setup I found the following that needed to be done:

remove splash page, add meta tag sections to other pages, tidy up urls, add non javascript nav, provice ALT tags, add a robot.txt.

My question is: Will any of those alterations/additions adjust their current ranking in a negative way?

discuss.

King of Bling

3:32 pm on Feb 6, 2004 (gmt 0)

I would surmise that those 'tweaks' could only help.

Be careful when changing file names for pages already indexed. Use a 301 redirect to point the SE to the new page.

Good luck

switchWRX

3:55 pm on Feb 6, 2004 (gmt 0)

Thanks for the 301 heads up bling!

Keep the comments coming.

Fruit and Veg

4:07 pm on Feb 6, 2004 (gmt 0)

Those changes look good.

Instead of totally changing the JS nav, you could place all the JS code in the <head> onto an external file then also make sure every page has a few text links at the bottom for the spiders to follow.

You may find some existing rankings fluctuate, but as long as you clearly present the fact that the client is now gaining MORE traffic/sales/conversions from your work, then the fact that an old page was No.3 but is now No.23 shouldn't really matter, especially if you can demonstrate that the old page was ranking highly for a phrase that didn't actually generate any sales.

xbase234

6:15 pm on Feb 6, 2004 (gmt 0)

Looks like you are using sound design principles. Just make sure you set the robots.txt file to "allow".

: )

switchWRX

9:13 pm on Feb 6, 2004 (gmt 0)

Thanks for the input guys.

Should be a good contract, they offered a nice bonus package based on the ranking I get them.

cheers.

rfung

1:22 am on Feb 8, 2004 (gmt 0)

of course - im curious if anyone has the experience of getting a SEO consultant making changes, and then having their site getting dropped out of the SERPs rankings out of those changes?

kmax

1:45 am on Feb 8, 2004 (gmt 0)

Say... what is a 301 redirect?

Thanks
Kenny

seo_guy

6:43 am on Feb 8, 2004 (gmt 0)

301 redirect tells the robots/spiders that the location of a page has permanently moved.

glengara

7:43 am on Feb 8, 2004 (gmt 0)

I'd aim for W3C validation, keep the Alt text to describe images, use the Title attribute for links.

kmax

2:35 pm on Feb 8, 2004 (gmt 0)

Ahhhhh I get it cool.
Thanks.

I see where someone suggested that he use a robots.txt.

I thought that was just a file you used if you did NOT want a dir spidered.

Maybe I have been messing up....

Do you always needs a robots.txt?

Thanks again
Kenny