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I have a new site that went up around mid-March. It isn't in Google yet (yes, I know, patience...something I confess I am short of ;-) My main 'competition' consists of a one page site not updated since the year 2000, and another site that hasn't even existed at all for some time. These 2 results make me wonder if all this SEO is ultimately a bunch of hogwash. How can those sites remain in the index, and be at #1 and #2 to boot? The search term is very narrow, these sites being about a particular person.
I have never spammed and have tried to apply everything I've gleaned from reading around the net in trying to optimize the site. META, alt tags, not too many outgoing links, very good/relevant title and description, good and highly relevant content, no Javascript, no cookies required, no Flash, no frames, etc. It is the single best resource that has ever been out there on its subject matter, bar none. I don't have a ton of incoming links at this point but I've gotten a few well ranked sites linked to me. Have I just wasted my time on being so diligent? Can anyone explain why 2 dead pages have been on top for so long (at least 6 months that I can recall offhand, and likely far, far longer). Is it really all down to incoming links?
Don't know if this has any relevance but Overture listed it very quickly. Unfortunately their link goes to an internal page. Is that a terribly bad thing?
Thanks for your thoughts :-)
I too am new to the world of SEO and have learned a great deal from the very extensive pool of knowledge that post here.
I have learned that inbound links are everything. Good ones that is.
I have learned that patience is a virtue on waiting for updated indexes and high page rank. I figure that if you came on in March, you may have missed the deep-crawl and that the April crawl will get your rankings up, but the update won't happen probably until mid may.
Keep reading what the people here have to say, avoid spamming, give it time, and you'll do well. IMHO.
Almost forgot something.
Welcome to Webmaster World
Startup, I followed your advice and checked out the linkbacks on those dead pages. The #1 shows links back from a couple of categories at Yahoo that it's in. The #2 (long-dead with all 404's) shows a few links back to its own self and a link from a UK newspaper. Neither of them are showing linkbacks from any other sites. So just this is enough to keep them where they are in Google all this time?
I was reading the other thread about SJ and when I put my terms in there, my new site shows at #2. I won't start all that debate again in this thread, but I do hope it means I'll be listed in 'regular' Google soon...and hopefully at that position, if not #1 :-)
EDIT -- I stand corrected. I think I was searching the linkbacks using SJ. Just checked the #1 site at 'regular' Google, and it shows absolutely no linkbacks at all! I know that that site has been in Google since at least early 2000 with no changes at all, and doesn't even have any real type of optimizing on it, not even a META description. It's a single Tripod member page - does Tripod keep it boosted somehow?
[edited by: anam32 at 3:18 am (utc) on May 3, 2003]
Welcome... Maybe it's just me, but if I had a dead page that was raked as #1 and 2 I would rebuild the page. Ie build a page has the same name and content as the file that is dead. Then link to your new site and or pages.
