Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
Since last 3 years the behaviour of the engines with websites specially google on travel related sites, it looks that there would not be any SEO live in comming 4-5 years. I had a litle research on the couple of websites having great content with all new quality backlinks and everything you can thing about the website and is not listed in engines but on the other hand a thousand of site with the duplicate content, links and everything(all most) are doing well over the engines. I dont think that google is not able to catch those duplicate pigs. But still pages are ranking high. Not a small issue this is but becauase since long happening so there might be a solution for these things. Little scary because you dont know how have copied you and when u are going to be penalized :(
Any comments...
Exp...
I've done quite a bit of work to try and help Google figure out that I'm the original. There is no doubt that I'm under some kind of penalty right now. I rank 45th for my own name (I occassionally sign articles) and that's just not right (I should be in the top 5...).
Here are some of the steps I've taken:
- Tightened up my robots.txt file to make sure duplicate pages are not indexed. This can happen because I use mod_rewrite and leaks do occur. Even pdf files are excluded.
- Revamped navigation to make the site more friendly to users. Making it easier for them to find related information (the website covers multiple topics).
- Removed duplicate content (such as the starting paragraphs for articles) and other such introductory explanations.
- Removed outgoing links (to authority sites, not partners) for certain topics. This content appeared at the end of each article as "additional resources." Instead I point to a specific section of my directory, where those same links can be found.
While this may sound simple, this is what it meant to me:
- I've got about 30 pages that should be removed via the robots.txt change (duplicate pages).
- Removing over 100 pages that contained introductory paragraphs to articles. (Could be seen as duplicate content - the site has about 900 articles).
- I needed to develop roughly 17 pages (over 14,000 words) of new content as introductory materials. These new pages are "replacements" for the 100 pages removed.
- Removed roughly 600 tables containing links to other websites.
I did this for two reasons - to help my placement in Google and to help my visitors.
End of SEO!
May Be May not Be!
The "Evolution of SEO" might be worth considering.
That is assuming that somebody, somewhere chooses to compete in the search engine industry by accurately assessing website content rather than devaluing website listings through arbitrary penalties.
The fact that folks need to find information on the web and will not settle for a mix of semi-relevant listings composed of big money entries and scum sucking spammers assures me that someday a real search engine will emerge that will even the playing field through a rational application of a rule set known to all publishers who wish to compete for a term.
Only when all players are aware of the rules of the game and when those rules can be enforced by accountable referees will we be able to consistently find what we what to find via web search.
On that day the "tricky" part of SEO will die a welcome death and the real professionals can do the necessary job of ensuring that client sites have the best possible chance of appearing in the proper SERPs.
[edited by: tedster at 5:03 am (utc) on Nov. 30, 2005]
[edit reason] fix typo [/edit]
End of SEO!
May Be May not Be!
Judging by previous threads ( cant search at the mo :( ) - I think SEO seems to end about 2 times a year. ;)
robots.txt will not get rid of pages already indexed. I tried that and they just went supplemental. Going to remove the robots commands on those pages and hopefully they will 404 enough eventually to get them out of google's index.
End of SEO!
May Be May not Be!
yeah, that is what they want you to think.
then, next year we all report back and see who is still making money. Then we will know if seo [is] or [is not] dead
who wants to be part of the first group? :-)
Well that’s been changing for a while now, starting with the sandbox in early 2004 right on up to Jagger and its only going to get a lot tougher. The goal of search engines today, (and rightfully so) is to stick it to anybody trying to optimize a web site with the goal of that site moving up in search engine rankings.
It’s good work, but it’s just a much more difficult and technical endeavor these days.
For example. Valid HTML may not effect Search Engines directly for ranking but it would help in a more mobile age where we use multiple devices and standards must be reached.
