Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
Our site gets around 10-20 sites a day link to it, various blogs and news sites. Total inbound links is around 700 and the blog has a 10,000 rank at Technorati.
The site has been live or over a year, we bought the domain and it is years old, so it shouldn't be in the sanbox. We don't do much active marketing.
Something has been really bugging me though, almost 100% of our search engine referrals are for the word 'sitename', 'site name' or some variation thereof. Eg. people who already know we exist and are looking for us.
We don't come up in any other search results, for eg. Google for 'online (service)':
We aren't in the first 1000 results or so, but a post on my own blog that mentions our site in passing is the 3rd-12th result - depending on which local flavor of Google you are using.
It seems to me we are being ignored for some reason, yet I don't know why - we haven't been fooling around with SEO, we just posted our site and that was that.
Is there any way to find out what is going on? I have emailed Google and not heard anything back
Thanks,
Nik
[edited by: jatar_k at 10:36 pm (utc) on Jan. 29, 2007]
[edit reason] Links and specifics removed, per TOS. [/edit]
We aren't in the first 1000 results or so, but a post on my own blog that mentions our site in passing is the 3rd-12th result - depending on which local flavor of Google you are using.So you are in Google, and you don't have a ban?
It doesn't sound at all like a Googl issue - more of a site issue.
But your question and subtitle contradict the content of your post, so I'm frankly confused.
even if the domain name is years old, even if it was previously a blog, its concievable that you should start counting the age of your site an therefore the amount of time google has had to "taste" your site, under your ownership,
from the date the whois details changed to your details, or perhaps the date you change the name of the blogger,,,
i imagine a blogs reputation very much depends on the bloggers own personal reputation an appeal, hence,,
Let me explain a bit more - my original post had a bunch of links in it and references to the Google results which got edited out - I understand why but it took away some info from the original post
We took ownership of the domain a year ago, almost to the day. We had a temporary site up which had 3 pages of info and a signup for notification email.
We posted a 'real' site and blog last July
The Google webmaster tool shows that they index on average 90 pages on our site per day, and the crawler visits every day.
We have over 700 pages in the index, and while not complete coverage of the site (we have 1000+ pages - website, blog, forum and wiki).
I would like to add that the forum and wiki are on separate subdomains, but they are well linked into from other pages and there are plenty of links going between all the sites, plus they all have the same theme.
Quadrille - The frontpage of our site doesn't come up in any search results other than the company name - some pages of the site such as old blog posts appear on the 10th page or further down, for queries that are usually irrelevant and bring us no traffic.
For the main keyword that describes our service, we are nowhere to be seen - even spam blog that have copied our blog appear in 40th-50th position.
A post from my personal blog which is around a year old appears as the 4th result for that same keyword - it links to our company homepage and I know for certain that our company homepage has many more incoming links than that post on my blog, has a better keyword density and everything else. With everything I know about Google, our homepage should be appearing in 1st-3rd position, but it is nowhere
I will read "Google Hot Topics", thanks for the pointer Patrick. Everything I have read though doesn't really point to a reason why we don't do well in search results - everything about our site suggests that it should rank high, which is what lead me to believe that Google are holding it back for some reason.
Also, in MSN we rank pretty well on the key terms, Yahoo not so well, but Google results are just horrible.
Also we have AdWords active and even though we are bidding less than what the others are, our ad ranks in 3rd-4th place because our CTR is 4%+ and our conversion rate on visitors is 25%.
So in summary, we get zero hits from Google for anything other than our company name - even though Google has indexed most of our pages, we get many sites link to our site each day (mostly the frontpage) and we do well with everything every Google tip sheet has ever told me.
So my questions are:
* What could the possible reasons for our homepage getting no search referrals from Google be (considering my own blog ranks 4th, and attracts 400-500 clicks a day from the result)
* How can I fix the problem - if at all
* How do I find out if Google has penalized our homepage in any way - the webmaster tool didn't indicate anything
* Is it possible that our competition is hurting us in some way? (eg. duplicating our content)
Apologies if I wasn't clear enough with the first post, thanks for the tips. I hope somebody out there has been in a similar situation before or knows how to find out about it or fix it
Thanks,
Nik
If you Google for
"online -service- -company name-"
our homepage doesn't appear in the results there either, but rather the post from my blog is #1 (the same post that is #4 when searching on 'online -service-') and all the other posts are either our competition (!) or articles and reviews about our product..
The WHOIS information has changed since then, as has the whole site and IP address. Would Google know that we aren't the same people who were previously domain-squatting?
Also, if I were to again update the WHOIS contact details to put all our company information in the domain (at the moment it is partially filled out) - would this help us or damage us?
Thanks again,
Nik
It still sounds like a 'site' issue; the site is listed, if badly, so while there may be something 'bringing it down', it does look as if it's being spidered and included.
If Google treats you worse than MS or Y! then the problem is usually link-related (not always).
As a 'mixed' site, you are certainly at risk from third party links; do you use nofollow approrpiately?
Are there any other parts of the site that have linking patterns that Google may be misinterpreting?
It would also be worth checking your logs for bot patterns, and checking your site navigation; if the spiders have difficulty getting around, that can hurt.
"Previously Used" domains do seem to have some emotional baggage, despite claims to the contrary, but as you are indexed, and it's been a while, I'd suggest that was not prime suspect.
Thanks again for your tips. I spent a bit more time looking through various tips to working with Google. We updated the content on our homepage a week ago, but the bot hasn't hit the homepage for around 2 week, even though it is hitting every other page fairly regularly. In the sitemap I suggested that it come back to the homepage daily - is there any other way I can ask the crawler to re-index the homepage?
As a 'mixed' site, you are certainly at risk from third party links; do you use nofollow approrpiately?
Can you ellaborate here? If you mean does the forum and wiki add nofollow to all URL's, then yes, they do. As does the comments section on the blog (basically all user-submitted content is stripped down and a nofollow added)
Are there any other parts of the site that have linking patterns that Google may be misinterpreting?
The site is actually very simple - it validates as XHTML 1.1 Strict and has a simple top-nav and simple side-nav, along with a row of links in the footer. All of these except for side-nav are persistent across the site. I can bring the site up in lynx and see clearly defined header/menu/content/footer areas.
Is there anything else I should look at in terms of 'link patterns'?
It would also be worth checking your logs for bot patterns, and checking your site navigation; if the spiders have difficulty getting around, that can hurt.
What I did was to write some quick code that gets appended to the footer of each page - it will identify the Google bot and log each visit. Hopefully after a few days I can dump a report that will show me sections of the site that it isn't reaching - is this a good methodology to finding dead areas?
Thanks for all the tips here, I was never too involved in the SE area until the pas few days and I have picked up a lot thanks to people like you who are willing to help out and share info
[edited by: tedster at 9:02 pm (utc) on Jan. 30, 2007]
[edit reason] fix formatting [/edit]
As a 'mixed' site, you are certainly at risk from third party links; do you use nofollow approrpiately?Can you elaborate here? If you mean does the forum and wiki add nofollow to all URL's, then yes, they do. As does the comments section on the blog (basically all user-submitted content is stripped down and a nofollow added)
That's fine; that's really what i was referring to - any 'third party' links, for which you are not 'responsible'.
It is worth checking links for which you ARE responsible; non-related links, link exchanges, reciproacla links to 'doubtful sites'. If you have a Google problem, spring cleaning any link of which you are not 100% certain is a useful move - it serves you, your visitors and Google, who is ever LESS tolerant of 'unwise' linking patterns.
But it does sound increasingly weird; it would be good to get comments from others who have relaunched 'previously used' domains.
info:www.ourdomain.com
it returns:
"Sorry, no information is available for the URL www.ourdomain.com"
Would that be the right conclusion for that result?
Has the site had any major rebuilding since its launch? Particularly where file renaming or movement has been wholesale?
If not, then a thoro clean up and a re-inclusion request may do the trick. But I have to say I'm not entirely convinced. It's difficult without knowing the site, but I'd always want to eliminate more obvious suspects before exploring the past. Especially after all this time.
Neither am I, but AFAIK no information on the Url isn't part of the sandbox effect...
Nov 2002: cache shows the domain had a single 'for sale' page on it with a link to an earthlink email address and 3 site links on it - all back to the same domain (with and without the www) and 3 variations of the domain name in plain text
2003/2004: Various different 'for sale' pages either hosted on the domain or redirecting to another domain. Whois records show 18 different owners in 3 years!
10th Jan 2006: Our first page on the domain, a single page with logo, latest news and 'signup for notification when we launch'
Between this date and the 18th of May, archive.org caches the site every week, and then stops for no real reason.
7th April 2006: The site is launched in the same form it is now, just a lot less info. The links from this point are still valid today, and the menu headings are the same as well as the general style.
From this point, archive.org revisits and cache's the site a further 14 times and indicates almost each time that the site has been updated
19th May 2006: The last visit that archive.org ever made, and the site is no real different. Hasn't been indexed by archive.org since (is this an indication of something? It goes from visiting once a week to never coming back again)
From that time till now, the main heading menu has been the same, with 2 more additions. 2-4 weeks ago we launched the two additional sites (wiki and forum) on subdomains which boosted the total pagecount. The blog has been on the site since last may. So since that old date, no significant changes
From Jan'06 to Oct'06 we had spikes in traffic around once a week as we were mentioned in various news media. We launched in November so it has been consistent growth since then.
Even when looking back at the site as far back as I could, I couldn't see that anything 'bad' was being done, other than squatting with a 'for sale' sign and plenty of ads (at one point).
Both the www.domain.com and domain.com have a PR of 6. All the sub-domains and /blog also have a PR of 6.
I have a couple of questions on doing a 'thorough cleanup'
* What would this involve? Would I need to break all my links and basically re-design and re-layout the whole site?
* If we do 'wipe the slate clean' and go in for re-inclusion, would there be a delay to hitting the front page of results while they 'watch' the site, or would it be indexed and positioned on merit as soon as it is re-included?
* If I change registrars and the whois contact info, would google see that as the site having a new owner? perhaps because we kept the same registrar as the old owner google thought we are the same group
This has become very interesting, today I was speaking to another startup founder and he has similar problems, since he also purchased a domain that had been sitting idle with for sale signs and adversiting on it. His experience was that it took endless effort to have the site re-included, and that even today, after 18 months, it still isn't being considered on it's current merit. Also another similar story from another friend who is only now (After a year) seeing referral traffic from google coming in.
Perhaps the lesson is that all these domains out there that are being sold by shadowy operators all have a black mark on their names with Google - so you shouldn't go near them. With their behavior they are killing the value of the very domains they are trying to sell.
I would also like to mention that during the period of purchasing this domain I registered a new domain and built a new site/blog that does very well in the SE's, perhaps I should have registered a new domain...
Thanks for your tips everybody - there is no doubt that I am going to try and fix this so please keep the advice and conversation coming
We only launched recently, so I haven't been tracking search engines seriously until this week - which is how I noticed our 'problem'
I have a couple of questions on doing a 'thorough cleanup'
* What would this involve? Would I need to break all my links and basically re-design and re-layout the whole site?
* If we do 'wipe the slate clean' and go in for re-inclusion, would there be a delay to hitting the front page of results while they 'watch' the site, or would it be indexed and positioned on merit as soon as it is re-included?
* If I change registrars and the whois contact info, would google see that as the site having a new owner? perhaps because we kept the same registrar as the old owner google thought we are the same group
1. Go read Google's webmaster stuff; just to be sure you are up to date. Primarily it's a matter of removing any link you are not 100% about. Then check again and repeat. And repeat. Then look at your code, be sure there's nothing careless or naughty. Then check those links again. Then check site navigation (xenu is your friend), then check the links again. Then be sure you have a working 301 from non-www to www, and no internal links to 'index' - always use '/'.
Then check the links one more time for luck.
2. Rumour suggests 'up and running' - but as your site never hit a high spot, that may not mean a lot in this case.
3. I'd have thought whois contact change at the time of relaunch, and complete change of content would suffice.
It all sounds like one more reason to be very, very careful of used domains. I've been lucky - twice - with <$20.00 ebay purchases; but neither would have broken the bank if they'd failed.
Personally, I'd never put an important site on a used domain until I'd quarantined it for a year. There's just too many horror stories! :(
[edited by: Quadrille at 4:24 pm (utc) on Jan. 30, 2007]
I have both at the moment, a URL forwarder for domain.com to www.domain.com is setting '302 Found', while my own redirect for 2 country-specific domains using mod_rewrite is setting 301 (moved permanently)
Thanks,
Nik
Every time, without question, for a permanent redirect.
In fact the 302 could be contributing to your problems.
cache:www.oursite.com
shows no result or cache for our site. Also, while the googlebot visits our site every day, and averages around 100 hits a day, it hasn't hit the homepage in over 2 weeks..
Every time, without question, for a permanent redirect.
In fact the 302 could be contributing to your problems.
Thanks! Funnily enough, it is a big-name commercial DNS provider that is doing the 302..
Nik
Sadly, many hosts don't have the first idea about redirects or the www issue; if I had a penny for every time I've heard of them making a mess, I'd have at least 7 pennies :)
link:www.mysite.com
now shows ~80 links (all very irrelevant links) as opposed to the 850+ links that were returned yesterday. Same query (linked to from the webmaster tools). No results on info: and cache: links for any of the domains
:(
[webmasterworld.com...]
I'd say get your redirects fixed and let Google know that you are new owners and have cleaned up the domain's link farm history.
almost 100% of our search engine referrals are for the word 'sitename'
The fact that you get even this search traffic with "No results on info: and cache: links for any of the domains" seems odd. How many total domains, and what about site: results?
* /blog/
* /
* /blog
* subdomain.domain.com
* subdomain.domain.com
site:domain.com - returns 766 results, with the same top-5 results.
I went through the two results and couldn't find which pages it does have for domain.com and which it doesn't for www.domain.com
They are supposed to be treated as the same domain, I specified 'www.domain.com' as my preferred domain with the webmaster tools.
I fixed the redirect now so that a query to domain.com will 301 to www.domain.com
Is the conclusion that the difference between the two domains because we previously had a 302 redirect? Is there a tool that will show me a list of the pages that are indexed in one and not the other?
As you can see, Google has indexed our site pretty well - I believe we have many more pages than what it shows but it is still good.
Thanks again everybody, the tips and advice here have been excellent!
