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I am new to the forum and this is my first posting.
I have an exsiting site and my goal is to get top 3 to 5 ranking on Google, MSN, & AOL for 3 keywords which are not extremely competitive.
Here is my problem. I didn't develop the site (i don't know how) and it's not SEO friendly. For example a product page looks like this:
www.example.com/index.php?file=list&itemoption=a
Also the title does not have my keywords in it etc.... I have been told by the developer I need to basically start from scratch which is not an option for me at this point. I figure my options are:
-Create mirror site w/ .net domain fully optimized and have a link to my .com page
-Try to build links etc.... for the existing site, adding optimized content pages etc...
Any help or feedback would be greatly apperciated. I look forward to anyone's feedback.
Thanks.
[edited by: caveman at 4:49 pm (utc) on Sep. 7, 2005]
[edit reason] URL exemplified [/edit]
Personally, if your site is not ranking well, I'd go ahead and rewrite the page URI's to SE friendly URI's, and change the nav structure to drop file extensions if possible:
example.com/
example.com/keyword1/
example.com/keyword1/versionA/
If you're not ranking anyway, these changes won't hurt much. Then, I'd focus on adding lots of new quality pages, with good content, and then start getting links. Fix first, develop after that.
I helped someone reorganize their site this way, and though it took about 3 to 7 months for all of the SE's to catch up, they eventually did. Once they did, the site was off to the races, and pretty quickly started to realize its full potential.
My 2 cents, but I expect lots of other opinions may be floating out there.
I have less than a 10 page website & have no programming experience.
Is it difficult to change or create "friendly URI's, and change the nav structure to drop file extensions if possible: example.com/keyword1/ " in php? Or should i just convince the original developer to do this work?
I am not ranking at all and the site has not even been submitted to the search engines at this point.
Thanks again.
When it comes to programming, I'm much clearer on what needs doing than how to do it. But there are plenty of folks in here who could help you. I believe that your job is made a little easier by virtue of your site using php. Plus for now, if you've only got ten pages, then fixing this now is a NO BRAINER. Definitely do it.
I don't think it will be very difficult for someone to do for you, once it is understood what needs doing. Try this search [google.com], and then try posting more in the threads or forums that work best for your needs here.
Hope that helps.
It would be good to come up for many search terms and secondarilary a bonus could be had if you came up on singular words.
I would look back to the basics and ensure your website is search engine friendly, communicates well, meets standards etc as basic... then go from there. Don't build out until you lay foundations.
[webmasterworld.com...] - see GG's msg#3 regarding longer dynamic urls
[webmasterworld.com...] - see GG's msg#3 regarding "&id=" and session ID's
Also, I could be wrong, but I think GG even said somewhere that while they've gotten better at indexing longer url's, they are choosing to limit their indexing of same, or something to that effect. Anybody recall/find that quote?
Either way, short and more descriptive URL's are preferred, not only for helping SE's to understand what a doc is about, but also for users, who take cues from URL's.
I am going to take the advice and fix the problem now.
Caveman as you mentioned "you don't think it will be very difficult for someone to do for you, once it is understood what needs doing"
Having a developer do this for the 10 pages any suggestions on how much time this would require? Or what is a reasonable cost?
According to the developer that created the site its a "long process". I just want to get an idea to either have them do it or go elsewhere.
Thanks again.
