Forum Moderators: open
I am mostly interested in the pages with content about the 45 cities covered (www.my-area-domain/default.asp?city=00). I'm considering creating a duplicate one page website for 5-10 of the main cities (www.my-city-domain.com)that link to the dnamic site. My only reason for doing this is to help Google read the pages. I have no desire to trick anyone.
I'm confused because I've been told that I will be penalized for creating duplicate pages. All I want them to do is read my content.
Do you agree that I will be penalized? If so, why can Google read a dynamic page to penalize it, but not to rank it?
Any other advice will be appreciated!
If you are sure that Google have indexed the pages then that removes the possibility that Google have problems with your URL.
If Google can't read the content of those pages then it's possible that there something wrong with your content. Content, such as; Java Script, Flash, Frames, Applets...are not indexable thus can't be read.
Sticky me your site and I'll take a look at it and I'll post it here what I find out.
Welcome to WW
Site PR4
More or less 285 external sites linking to you
Your pages are ranked but buried in the serp, it seems to me you have 2 problems.
I tested 3 cities, ones that start with Bur, D, and I...using the name of the city as a query, each returned 1410 URLs from your site but burried way down from the total return of the query.
Your problem seem to be 2 front
1. Optimization - (not talking keywords) your actual content is way down your page. Your Nav dominate the top 2/3 of your page. Google doesn't use 'meta-description' and as a result your pages descriptions are often your Nav or your text for your search form.
2. Site Structure - your internal links to each city looks like this yourdomain.com/cities/cityname.asp but when clicked it goes to yourdomain.com/default.asp?city=xx. Not only this is a redirect but you lose PR as well. Plus there might be a penalty issue here too. Basically, you have 2 URL representing a page /cities/cityname.asp and default.asp?city=xx
In fact, Google have a hard time understanding your site structure because if you search site:yourdomain.com -qqzzxxw would only return 1600+- URLs when in fact you have way more than that already in the Google index.
Cheers
Net_Wizard...
RE: Optimization - Is this just a matter of moving the content to the top of the page, above the Nav? Or will that cause other problems?
RE: Site structure - Should I remove the "Cities" page altogether since it really just duplicates the Nav? Or leave the "Cities" page and change the re-directs to directs?
Thanks!
RE: Optimization - Is this just a matter of moving the content to the top of the page, above the Nav? Or will that cause other problems?
I see that you are using CSS too. CSS is not only for fonts properties but also for positioning. Use it to position the content to the top and you could still achieve your current look...it would be a tremendous help for your pages.
If you are not familiar with CSS, there are some great sites that would walk you through in layman's term, search for it. I wouldn't recommend the CSS section here...(Brett no offense) it's just too restrictive for my taste.
RE: Site structure - Should I remove the "Cities" page altogether since it really just duplicates the Nav? Or leave the "Cities" page and change the re-directs to directs?
My personal choice would be to follow a logical tree-type structure. Like...
Root
Main Directory 1¦Main Directory 2¦etc
Sub-directory1 for MD1¦Sub-directory2 for MD1¦etc
It's a choice, whichever you want as long as there is a normal flow of structure and as long you avoid duplicate URL you are fine. Google will pick them up according to your structure.
Cheers
I'm not sure what you mean by "Google doesn't use Meta-Description". They certainly do from what I've observed.
What you need to do, is impliment a URL rewrite on your server.
so....
www.my-area-domain/default.asp?city=00
can be rewritten...
http://www.my-area-domain/city/00.html
this way, the pages and content appear as normal pages.
If you would like me to elaborate, just shout! :)
[edited by: engine at 10:49 am (utc) on Dec. 3, 2003]
[edit reason] de-linked [/edit]
[cfdev.com...]
Any experience with it.
robbielockie: that way is longer .. and static pages only get PR if google finds an internal link to it ..
instead see my post, and link your default.php from the site. Next update is due in 2 weeks and should show the results if it indexes your pages in the right time.
On second thought, I remember checking your header and it came back as windows. So, I guess mod_rewrite is out of the question, just stick with what you have and just structure it logically.
Cheers
Google doesn't use whatever you put in your meta-description as their description of your page.
The description of your page comes from within the content of your page. As far as I know, this haven't change.
That is why, it's pretty important that your content is at the top or at least near the top of your codes.
Cheers
In my experience depending on what keyword(s) are used to search on, Google will use either the meta-description or some other text on the page to create their description "snippet".
Take any site that has a meta-description and do a search on a phrase in that meta description and you will likely see the meta-description used in the description for that site in the serps.
Cheers
However, when you search for the site's main keywords, it shows a snippet fron the content, then "Description: Blah, blah, blah." Blah, blah, blah is nowhere on the site. The info is correct, but I have no idea where they got the exact wording.
That's from your ODP description
I've found an ASP.net solution to the rewrite of the URL. I've not looked at it in depth but it may be the answer. Url is below:
[codeproject.com...]
Hope this helps - it may help me anyway.
Just to show you that I haven't taken leave of my senses ;), goto Microsoft's site and take a look at their meta-description.
Do a search on the first 5 words in that meta-description and you will see that their site comes up number #1 and that the first part of the description in the serps is from their meta-description tag.
This does not refute your observation nor validate it. You got another sample? ;)
Meanwhile, Jimville case, as well as mine, shows that the meta description is ignored by Google.
Cheers
p.s. MS code is interesting, at the very top shows <!--TOOLBAR_EXEMPT--> even before <html>. Whose toolbar?
Do a search on my favorite programming language, which should be apparent from my handle, and look at every serp on the first page whose description does not start with "..." The 7th, 8th and 10th to be exact.
I submit to you that if your site has a meta-description with a phrase that is unique enough to be found in a search, Google will likely use the text from that meta-description in their description.
For example, if you look at the home page in my profile, the two word phrase that I target is the first two words in my title. I will come up somewhere between 7th and 11th and you will clearly see that the meta-description is what is displayed in the serps.
But on the same query, I also found several popular high PR(7-9) sites that have meta-description but Google didn't use them. In fact to really test it, I query using a sentence within their meta-description enclose in quotes to be very specific and those sites didn't even come up, suggesting that Google did not include what's in the meta-description as part of the page.
So, we found proofs that on some popular site meta-description were used, we also found proofs that on some popular sites meta-description were ignored.
Where do we stand from here?
All, I know, mine was ignored, Jimville's meta-description was ignored even though the description reflect the query.
Question is...does meta-description work for you?
Please take a look at your sticky mail. Thanks.
www.my-city-site.com/default.asp/city/00
That's after installing isapi rewrite filter. Used to be:
www.my-city-site.com/default.asp?city=00
All pages load through the default page creating a redirect which may be causing the Google non rank situation.
URLs that look like:
www.my-city-site.com/search?asp?guide=dining are ranking fine.
Any help is appreciated.
www.my-city-site.com/default.asp/city/00
will not be indexed by Google, as it doesnt see these as physical pages.
You need to make sure, all urls have a file name, and a maximum of 1 variables.
www.my-city-site.com/default.asp?city=100 is fine and will be indexed.
the url rewrite engine, allows for urls to be re-written, from the client side, to something else on the server side.
i.e
www.my-city-site.com/default.asp?city=100 is posted to the browser by the user, the server receives.
www.my-city-site.com/global.storefront/city/00
The search engine, must belive there is a physical, html, php, asp or what ever, type page there.
getting in to the search engine is as simple as that...
as long as there is a list of pages it can index, this can all happen in less than two weeks.
if you go to google, and type in
allinurl:www.mysite-where.com
it gives you a list of your pages that are in Google.
once they are in, getting them to rank highly, is a question of search engine optimisation, you could pay someone to do it, you could learn more on this forum, or you could update the pages on a regular basis, which seems to stimulate higher rankings.
