Page one in Yahoo - nowhere in Google

[rickrick49]

My site appears on page 1 in Yahoo UK for the most relevant search string (out of 17,800,000 results for x...... and 4,840,000 for x......s). However, when it comes to the same search strings in Google, my site does not feature in the first 64 pages (out of 10,200,000 and 38,800,000 results respectively - it's weird that the results for the singular and plural searches are the opposite way round in the two SEs).

I have tried to do the standard things - there are sitemap.xml and robots.txt files and I have got us on some directories and so on. It certainly seems to have worked as far as Yahoo is concerned, and we have had a few hits from Bing, but how do I crack Google? Any suggestions would be gratefully received!

[tedster]

Welcome to the forums, rickrick49.

Yes, the search engines are definitely different. They all try to sort out natural links - spontaneously given links rather than links the webmaster can place on their own. I think Google does a better job of it than the others do, although they can certainly be gamed as well.

I'd start by studying the URLs that are ranking on google for your search tersm. Especially notice the links they get that seem to be independent, or "editorially given" (as Google engineers like to say.) Then notice what kind of content attracts those links to get ideas about what you can do that people will WANT to link to - want to recommend to their visitors.

It can seem when you read various forums and articles, that there is an easy formula you can follow to rank on Google. But even my answer above is a kind of shot in the dark. Not every URL ranks because they have the strongest links. There are many, many factors involved and Google isn't telling us what they all are. So it becomes a very creative game - and a learning curve.

I think that one valuable thing to do is to notice what people might be looking for in your area that other sites don't do well. You might use Twitter or Facebook for some evidence, but visiting the sites that rank and look for the "gaps". You just might come up with a winner of an idea - and anything you can do to increase real visitors and backlinks is going to help you on Google.

[goodroi]

Welcome to Webmasterworld rickrick49,

There are well over a hundred factors that can influence your Google ranking. The more important factors are having many quality & relevant backlinks pointing to your page which has significant, unique and relevant content.

You mention the search engines reporting total results (out of 17,800,000 results for x). This is not usually a very useful number. It does not demonstrate competitiveness or popularity. If I search for "john walks his dog", Google returns about 7,710,000 results and Yahoo reports 59,600,000 results. I doubt many people are trying to rank for that term or searching for it.

A better measure of competitiveness would be the average number of backlinks for the top sites. Even this measurement isnt perfect since a site with 10 great backlinks can outrank a site with 100 low quality links.

Good luck with your link development.