Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
If I do a search for "mysite" or "mysite.com", it comes up number 1. If I search for any relavent keyword, it's not listed whatsoever. (cache:mysite.com shows nothing as well but I did have a pragma no-cache set previously so this may explain that).
I have a google sitemaps account and sitemap.xml file which is updated by a nightly cron process to include any new URLs (currently around 90). I also have a google adwords account, but my budget is low, so it's not helping much. I do not yet have any "important" in-bound links at all, unfortunately. IMO, the page is clean and well-designed for people, not sure about bots. Research I've done shows all the right keywords are there.
ALL of my pages are dynamic executable scripts, the only static page is index.html which currently does a javascript window.location= redirect to a script called "home". I'm not sure if this is google-friendly or perhaps even demoting my site (fwiw, the index.html page passes w3 validation, but the rest of the site does not). I also have another domain, myothersite.com, with an index.html page which is also doing a javascript window.location= redirect to a mysite.com URL, not sure if this demotes as well or not.
Questions:
1. Are the js redirects demoting my site?
2. Is the second domain js redirect demoting my site?
3. How much does valid markup affect ranking? I noticed that a lot of high ranked sites don't pass the validation test either.
Related questions:
How do I know when/if googlebot is scanning/indexing my website's URLs
(from the sitemap)?
Is it worth the $299 to get into the Yahoo directory?
How do I request google update their cache of my website?
Any other google-specific SEO advice appreciated.
Thanks,
Ryan
[edited by: caveman at 7:04 pm (utc) on Sep. 9, 2006]
[edit reason] Please, no URL drops or site specifics, per TOS [/edit]
If you can't use .htacess for some reason, consider using index.php or index.asp (or whatever works for your host) to do the permanent redirect.
For your second domain, it should also do the 301 redirect.
As far as validated content goes, I think it's important in the sense that it's possible that a robot could get confused by an unclosed tag in the wrong place, and miss some of your content. So, doing some basic checking is a good thing. However, I don't think being W3C perfect down to the last jot and tittle is going to make that big a difference.
I'm assuming it also helps with Google, since G indexes the Yahoo directory listings. I can't really say it helps alot, since G has been messed up since earlier this year (I just got the Yahoo listing in March).
But, yes, it helped me tremendously with Y rankings! Just keep in mind that it is an ANNUAL fee and Y may reject your site & keep your payment. Be sure you have a clean, non-spammy site and your submission should be relevant as well. Check out the other listings in your area on the directory and see how they are worded before sending your submission.
No it's not. In fact it starts to look like some types of sneaky spam that Google tries very hard not to list. Run your site through Xenu LinkSleuth to see what bots make of your site navigation.
>> or perhaps even demoting my site (fwiw, the index.html page passes w3 validation, but the rest of the site does not). <<
Validation isn't the be all and end all, but there are some types of coding errors that can stop bots dead. Make the code the best you can.
>> I also have another domain, myothersite.com, with an index.html page which is also doing a javascript window.location= redirect to a mysite.com URL, not sure if this demotes as well or not. <<
The only type of redirect you should be doing is a "301 redirect". That will sort everything out the way you want it.
Internally link to index pages using www.domain.com/ only. Do NOT link to /index.html ever.
