Unable to rise to top 10

...why is a site with great content and links staying at 50?

[ncreegan]

realneatwidgets.com (gah, so sick of widgets) has a PR of 6, 65 out of site, high quality, one way incoming links, about 300 in site links that show up in google, tons of great content that gets linked to all the time, and a medium amount of seo on every page, but hasn't been able to rise above 50th place in the results for 'neat widgets.' The top site is neat-widgets.com, with pr3, 6 backlinks (two from forum posts) and a dynamic system driving it. 5 of the rest of the top ten sites are just completely irrelevant.

My current efforts have included:
-making all content browser friendly
-building quality links, recip and non
-unique titles and tags on all pages with accurate descriptions
-light seo for the whole site, with good internal and relevant linking

The only thing that's kept the site alive is that people bookmark it instantly and it's the first place they come because it has everything they need... but I'd really like more than 4 users from G every day.

Any idea what I could be missing here?

[coho75]

How long has the site been up? You may be feeling the effects of the sandbox, which has been discussed at length over in the Google forum.

[ncreegan]

The site has been up for about 9 months I'd say... thanks for the sandbox idea I'll go read up on it.

[coho75]

Yeah, sounds like the elusive sandbox theory. I have a site that is experiencing the same thing.

[ncreegan]

I've read quite a bit of speculation, but no concrete methods for overcoming the problem. Anybody have any useful links? I'll post if I find something.

[wanderingmind]

9 months and sandbox? Nah. Unless you just added a pile of sitewide links or something in the last 30 days..

This may just be because of PR not being updated.. or better on-page SEO.. but then you for all I know is the king of all that. Google is such a pain :)

[bears5122]

Seems Google prefers spammy sites, cloaked sites, and those wonderful scraper sites to sit on top of the SERPs. Conveniently this leads to more adwords being purchased.

[dvduval]

how do you rank for...
allinurl:your keywords
allintitle:your keywords
allintext:your keywords
allinanchor:your keywords
?

[Powdork]

50?!
Do you have any idea what I would give to show up at 50?;)
For a newish site and if it is a competitive search, 50 is not bad. Google has simply gotten to be that poor of a search engine in this regard.
Hopefully, the only thing you're missing is more time.

[Robert Charlton]

Any idea what I could be missing here?

It's hard to tell from your description. Possibly, inbound anchor text containing the phrase "neat widgets."

[Nuttakorn]

Sandbox is related to link not website. If you have just got a new link it may in sandbox effect.

[ncreegan]

allinurl:8
allintitle:3
allintext:3
allinanchor:3

[Powdork]

Sandbox is related to link not website.

Perhaps, but if the site is new, then the links probably are as well.

[photonstudios]

Get more 1 way inbound anchor text optimized links.

[glitterball]

9 months is very new as far as Google is concerned.
I'm finding that it's taking longer and longer to get a site to perform in Google.

If you manage to get your site into DMOZ, it seems to speed things up a little (but it's not everything).

[rich42]

the problem might be your stated goal - to rank well for 'neat widgets'

If it's even a moderately competitive term - it may be a serious uphill battle. sometimes those lame-looking sites have tons of incoming anchor text that google's not showing.

I'd stop worying about ranking well for 'neat widgets' and come up with 25 or more (maybe a lot more) other ways people might search for your site.

use the overture keyword tool to figure out the right ones to target.

then - do some moderate to heavy SEO on pages for those terms. if you've already got the content - it should be easy to swap a few words and still keep the user experience good.

I'm getting about 5 x the traffic I was 5 months ago - but my ranking for 'neat widgets' has stayed around 30-40.

Most of the traffic comes from all the less popular terms I got in the top 10.

[ncreegan]

rich42 - thanks for the tips, but on that site, I'm using both methods, I always go for the full spectrum and kind of hope for the best. Unfortunately, I've struck out on both the low competition keywords AND the high competition ones. I think part of the problem is that 99% of the results returned are from bunk sites that just do random content generation.

The way that it looks like I'll have to go is just keep building quality incoming links and wait for my site to gain more credibility with google.

[dvduval]

allinurl:8
allintitle:3
allintext:3
allinanchor:3

I'm thinking there is some sandboxing effect going on here, especially if you say you are at 50. Even though you started your site 9 months ago(January), I'm sure many of the links you have aquired are still relatively new (and sandboxed).

I'm sure you have a high quality site, and its unfortunate you are being penalized (like many other people).

[webdude]

I agree that nine months is considered new in the google world. I had a site that also hovered in the 50 to 100 range. I did everything I could to try to improve the rank. It slowly moved a couple spots per month (back when there was a dance). To make a long story short, it took about 1.5 years for the site to hit in the first 10, another 6 months to hit #1 for a variety of very competative key phrases. I lost the site for about a month and a half over Florida, but it came back to #1. Besides the Florida thing, the site has been #1 for about 2 years. So my timeline...

0-6 months 500
next 6-18 months 200-50
next 6 months 50-1
next 24 months 1 (except for Florida)

It can be a long row to hoe. The most inportant thing I learned in the process was the value of the incoming links. All my incoming are related. After hitting #1 though, you don't need to solicite links anymore. Other webmasters will come to you looking for the trade. I will only link if the site is related. I think this is very important. It keeps you from losing your hair with every algo change, so I believe.

I think that is the best policy.

Longevity does have its merits.