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What in the SEO is going on?
Am seeing the complete opposite to you - rank very well on .com search , but filter to UK and index nowhere to be seen!
Of course they can. And I think if they downgrade or drop index pages it will be the last nail in the coffin. How on earth does that help fight the real issue of spam, which incidently seems to be totally unchallenged in the new SERPS anyway.
I found a site yesterday that had 2000 hidden words on it's index page.
Take CNN for example: zero content worth returning that sites homepage for anything other than the domain name.
That's an invalid statement. Zero content? Take for instance their "Breaking News" headline they throw up before they've had a chance to publish/link to stories. In addition, I don't think CNN's front page premium advertisers, nor SEs for that matter, consider their link/content unworthy of being found by searchers.
One of my sites has an outdoor Webcam on the index page that folks use for judging the current real-time weather in my area or just for watching the sunrise or sunset. In addition, there are announcements on the index not found anywhere else on the site. Judging from commentary, my readers don't find this page a useless sitemap; I'd theorize the Webcam's brought more back than any widget could have.
If your theory is correct Brett, the other SEs must be salivating to see it proven true, and I'll have to join the "Google's Imminent Demise" crowd.
Yes, that looks to be the case. It makes sense as "natural" unsolicited links will not ALL have the exact same anchor.
Taking just one of our sites into consideration it would be impossible (& bad search results) not to show the home page for most searches - as Google currently does. We have 2 distinct businesses in the same field but appealing to different sectors. We then have the site split into 4 lanquages. The searcher needs to land on this page to make his choices as the search terms relate to a specific region or country and are mostly not language specific. While we provide links throughout the site to get people back to the proper section if they mistakenly land on the wrong lanquage page, it is not how we want them to navigate.
[edited by: Tropical_Island at 2:37 pm (utc) on June 23, 2003]
If I am searching for "green widgets" and I end up on a copyright statement page, that's it, I am outa here!
I am not going to navigate to the homepage in hopes of Discovery.
Where is the relevancy in that?
Its like the 3 second rule, if you go to a webpage, and you don't see what you are looking for in 3 seconds, you leave!
So, whatever is going on, Websites/seo pp/ and Especially Google are loosing, I think google may of won the battle, but they are loosing the war.
They need to figure out what they were trying to achieve, and why they are not getting it.
Thoughts on this?
It's called an algo tweak.
I think we all agree on that one.
Google finally woke up to the fact the index pages are lame and surfers don't want to go to them, nor need them. They are glorified site maps most generally full of spam that surfers don't want.
As mentioned before, that is a huge generalization and far from true IMO. Are you saying their is no use for your index page here on WW? How about other forums where their index page is the same as your "forums home" index? Anyway, I could think of several different index pages that ARE important for the users for several different reasons.
So, the algo switched to nuke the index pages and discount all the link spam that they are being used for. end of story.
With respect, Someone is jumping way ahead of the gun on this one. IMO, yes they may be an algo tweak to reduce the importance of an index page, but to 'Nuke" them!? I don't think this will ever happen.
I also do not see a lot to support this claim in the first place. For one of my sites I have the index page (still ranked very highly) with a subpage indented below the index on the listings. For another site I do have a "contact us" page listed first with the index page being listed second (indented under "contact us.").
Surely the user would prefer to enter through my sites index page which provides relavant info on that search than my "Contact Us" page which basically on have an email link. What are users mostly going to do that enter through this "contact us" page!? Click on the homepage (index) link to see what the site has to offer.
I also run LOTS of different websites, some that are ONLY index pages. They all held high rankings for their related keyword phrases.
Algo tweak to lessen the importance of the index page, maybe. But index pages being "nuked", NEVER.
None of my sites have had the drop for the index page and I still see most of the SERPS dominated by index pages (over 50 categories- 1000 KW's).
I highly doubt that there was an algo switch to nuke SOME index pages.
More likely, the missing index pages are a result of an algo switch of another sort and this is a side effect rather than the original goal.
<<It is just becoming clear that G did an algo tweak of some sorts with relation to the home page and all the whinning and crying in your coffee isn't going to change that. >>
You are right that webmasters will not benefit from whining and crying, however it is probably useful for them to figure out why their traffic has dissapeared and attempt to fix it.
Strangely enough, I am seeing almost the opposite - Index pages for my sites coming in on SERPS all over the board where as, in the past, more targeted interiors would show up.
Lastly, let's not overlook the fact that Google is undergoing a massive transition (the update alone may take 2 weeks) and all may not be quite right yet (certainly not PR).
- the index page is in the top ten for keyword1, while it's nowhere for keyword2
- for a regular search for keyword2 subpages appear on #100 - #200, while a search in Google's directory returns the index page on #2
(Someone else who noticed this? An index page which was dropped (filtered out) for a keyword after the Dominic update, appears in the top ten for a search in the directory while it's still nowhere for a normal search.)
Of course, (as already mentioned) there are lots of changes in the algorithm as well as for the filters. Therefore, the 'index page dropped' phenomenon is probably caused by more than one effect.
Take CNN for example: zero content worth returning that sites homepage for anything other than the domain name.
'news'
it's all about making the internet work better, faster and stronger.
Maybe not useless in some cases, but not where you might want to start from.
I never visit the WW home page for example. I always start from the (bookmarked) "my active threads" list.
If I am searching to buy a new shirt online, would I want to be dumped at the front page of Macy's or taken directly to some relevant internal page in their shirts section? The latter is my preference.
I have seen a number of sites where the contact page is suddenly the top listed page; and one of them is a site that I am associated with. Thankfully every page of the site has very clear navigation to get you anywhere else in the site in just one more click, so I don't think the surfers who do arrive at the site have a devalued experience. However, will they actually click on that link from Google when the title is "Contact the Widget Company"? In many cases, and especially if they were looking for the official site of "The Widget Company" then that Contact page in the SERP confirms the site as being the official site of the company and I'm guessing they will usually click it. However if the contact page should come up top in a search for "four legged widgets" (it does not) then that (in my opinion) would be a rogue and unwanted result.
Thankfully every page of the site has very clear navigation to get you anywhere else in the site in just one more click, so I don't think the surfers who do arrive at the site have a devalued experience.
This is what I would optimize for with regard to Dominic & Esmeralda if I weren't already there thanks to advice gleaned from here. Great advice.
Let's say I sell sporting goods (which I don’t)... like golf, bowling, soccer, tennis everything. I have lots of inbound links with anchor text for "bowling balls", "golf clubs", "soccer balls", "tennis raquets", etc.
I recently removed an entire main category from the site less than a month ago (let's say the bowling category).. so mysite.com/bowling is gone, but the htaccess is setup so that it mirrors mysite.com (any URL that is mistyped shows mysite.com, but the URL remains mysite.com/mistyped_url).
"bowling balls", "golf clubs", "soccer balls", "tennis raquets", etc. all used to be first page in Google SERPS for mysite.com before Dominique
But NOW...... all those backinks have been factored in, and it's doing well, but the page that is ranking well is mysite.com/bowling! (remember, it mirrors the homepage for incorrect URLs)
You can't tell me that my bowling page was optimized well for golf clubs, soccer balls, etc... The only logical explanation is, that Google sees these two pages as the same, counts the inbound links the same for both pages, but it is giving some kind of preference to the deeper page.
In contrast Microsoft show pages of my biggest site in 6 of the top 10 results for the search, "widget history". It may be nice for me but it's not good results for the person searching. All 6 are specific results and you have to get down to 13 for my index page.
Meanwhile other top sites that should show up under "widget history" aren't showing at all.
Hopefully Google won't wind up like Microsoft.
