Why does Google hate me when Yahoo and MSN love me?

[Decius]

Now, I'm certain the original perception is that I'm just whining, but this is not the case. I have been infuriated before but now I'm just very interested, like a long time dejected friend, why Google perpetually ignores me no matter how good I am.

I keep saying Google because using the mass quantities of information I have absorbed about what to do and what not to do, I have, over the last 2.5 years, optimized and fixed my site up so it is beautiful.

As a result I am consistently on the first or second page of MSN and Yahoo for the keywords I target but Google keeps completely ignoring me.

I suppose my question is, aside from technical aspects, and the concept of "trust", is there a little thing that differs between Google and (MSN and Yahoo) that I seem to be missing?

In other words, is there some Google filter that has all of the following characteristics:

1. Google penalizes the hell out of you for this... by "the hell" I mean pushes you back to where you are no longer listed for those keywords.

2. Yahoo and MSN do not penalize you at all for it.

3. It is an uncommon thing that most SEO documents don't cover... for example, I recently registered my domains for 8 years rather than renewing it every year because I "heard" Google checks this.

--------

Although I know no one knows for sure I'm certain there are a lot of people here who spend a lot more time examining the differences between Google and Yahoo and MSN.

Thanks!

[Marcia]

I'm still tanked on one site for dup anchor text, but I did it to have user-friendly navigation, not for SEO purposes. Not repetitions of the identical word or phrase, but a repeat of anchor text to the same pages in image alt text and bottom text navigation. Then throw in some breadcrumb navigation and it's very user friendly but you can have an SEO disaster on your hands if there's an OOP in place.

The site pulls in very good, steady revenue from traffic from another search engine, so I've been kind of afraid to touch anything.

>>The bottom line is that either sites hit the sweet spot with an algo and will rank well, or they don't and they won't.

Really?

Yup, really!

And that's with any search engine. It's easier to see with some than it is with others, but there are certain factors programmed into the algo and sites that match the factors get "scored" for them. And if there are filters, match those and it's the opposite. That's what algorithms do, rankings are based on scoring. Match criteria for scoring and it adds "points" - match negatives and a site "loses points" - it makes life much easier to think in terms of ones and zeroes.

[edited by: Marcia at 2:28 am (utc) on Nov. 26, 2006]

[tedster]

So using the same anchor link as the title and the keywords in the actual URL... would that be considered as included in this or would that be good SEO?

I often mirror anchor text and the target page's H1 element for usability's sake - and I have not noticed a problem. It's only good usability. My title elements are usually shorter than the H1.

Lining up too many elements exactly (anchor text, title, h1, description, keywords, first sentence) and then repeating that link in several places around the domain certainly could be a problem. I would avoid that kind of heavy-handed "optmization".

How about keyword density in the url? Would Google be more picky about this than the others?

I wouldn't put the same keyword in the url more than once. I've seen greater repetition get ranked on occasion, but as a regular practice, I think it would be like poking a stick in a hornet's nest and raise a flag for the entire domain. Ranking well on Google requires a natural balance of many elements, and they are getting better and better at measuring "natural".

[Decius]

I totally agree... now, the problem is, I've already launched the site with, I would guess, some urls with a overseo'd set of keywords. Is it recommended I change them or leave them as is? (the risk being, of course, that anyone who links to the old url will get duplicate content, and google will see this and possibly smack me upside the head)

[newborn]

I have a serious problem with this too, I rank very well in MSN and kinda well in Yahoo. But have been tanked by Google. My business model has not really been kicked in the rear but I am just hoping that the 120 penalty is eventually removed, even though I wont do anything to change it. Thats the plan I just wont full stop change anything to please G and then get hurt by MSN, there is no guarantee with G.

So my advice stay where you are and create a subdomain to try and beat the stress.

[Decius]

I'll just repeat my question because it's a very important one IMHO.. if the URLs I currently have are too keyword dense, should I change them and in doing so how would I prevent Google from nicking me?

[tedster]

If you change a url, you WILL get nicked. Even using a url by url 301 redirect, there will be problems at least for a while. I'd say wait and first see what effect fixing your backlink profile has.

If you do decide to change urls at some point, I'd suggest you only change those where the same keyword appears more than once.

[Decius]

Damnit.

I suppose I will attempt to clean up all new urls so that it offsets the possible saturation of over seo'd urls.

Thanks tedster.

[Whitey]

Just a few months ago, Matt Cutts blogged a kind of storm warning for webmasters who tend to experiment with many SEO ideas on a regular basis. You could easily do this a while ago. Today, your footprint remains indefinitely

We're just about to experiment with something along these lines, on those link issues, that folks here are talking about :

Here's one generic example where I have seen a site recover: They wanted to be sure that their service ranked for "city name" and so they included "city name" in many (15+) navigation links on every page, including the main nav bar and some footer links. Their previously good rankings took a nose dive, but returned gradually, step-wise almost, after we restored a more natural balance to the use of keywords in links.

With three domains to test this on are we likely to be "footprinted"?

The idea was to remove the "navigation links" on 1 , compliment the navigation links with associated text on 2 , halve the navigation links on 3 , and then observe.

How long do you envisage it will take the filters to respond to these link alterations [ if we are correct ] in this test?

[edited by: Whitey at 4:24 am (utc) on Nov. 27, 2006]

[MThiessen]

If you change a url, you WILL get nicked. Even using a url by url 301 redirect, there will be problems at least for a while. I'd say wait and first see what effect fixing your backlink profile has.

Ran into this myself a while back, enough time passes though and it seems to not only straighten out, it actually improves things if done right.

[Decius]

I'm still on the fence about this but I will choose to wait it out for now. You can mess with titles and meta tags, but once you start changing urls it's a huge hassle.

[VNelson]

Decaff,

Per your comment...

Make sure you don't have any indexold.html type files in your directory tree...

We have this type of thing in our web folders but I don't see how the Google robots would ever find them so how would they know about it? Is there some spidering going on that can find odd files like that? I thought they only found things that are linked to from something live.

Thanks

[pele]

I noticed the reverse of this years ago when I was consistently #2 or #3 in Google for several years straight and now that Yahoo and MSN want me ranking high I seem to be bouncing back and forth.

It makes me wonder if they all filter out the top ten results of their competition so their search results don't match.

When I'm #1 in MSN and Yahoo I drop in Google.
When I'm #1 in Google I drop in Yahoo and MSN.

My sites have been up since 1998 and 1999 so they have many old and trusted longterm relevant links.

[photopassjapan]

Make sure you don't have any indexold.html type files in your directory tree...

We have this type of thing in our web folders but I don't see how the Google robots would ever find them so how would they know about it?

Hehe...
Do you have sitemaps?
Uploaded to G?

;)

Watch out for files you don't want to be indexed.

Although if there are no links pointing to a URL that's included in the feed, i think they'll mark it as supplemental then drop it. After a while.

[theBear]

VNelson,

If you have directory indexes turned on but no index.nnn[n] file in a directory then a link to a directory would return an index listing that uncovers every file in the directory.

The search engine bots have a feast.

[edited by: theBear at 10:53 pm (utc) on Nov. 28, 2006]