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Well, I have a new site that is indexed in this, November, update (first crawled in the beginning of October).
I`ve got PR6 and have 176 backward links.
The problem is my low position for main keyphrase. I`m on 89th place, and have a bunch of PR5/4 sites/pages in front of me.
And when I search with "allinanchor: my main keyphrase", I`m 15th.
Also, I have good content, keyphrase in title, keyphrases in alts,...
I`m so desperate, don`t know what to do, what to change,...
Anyone experienced something similar?
Please, help.
My old PR0 brought me much more traffice than my new PR5!
I can make 1 subtle change to my site and disappear into the basement of the SERPS for my keywords. The freshbot is great since you can make some changes (make backups) and see how it affects your position.
LeeF50
The majority of links to your home page seem to be from guest book pages. From what I understand (in the English language Google) Google effectively discounts the value of these links to nothing or they may even count as spam.
You need links from pages that relate to yours via topic.
Page Rank is only one factor and it seems to be less important in the last few months.
I have a PR of 7, which puts me at #4 in the Google directory for the relevant category. Still, on the search for the main keyword, many pages are above me that have a PR of 5. Some probably legitimately deserve to be above me, but most don't.
Like you guys/gals, I'm clueless as to why this is happening.
But I'm still finding that there are sites above mine with lower PR, less content, and fewer links. It puzzles me.
But of more relevance?
I think my site has more relevant content than the sites above me. We're all offering info on "widgets", and I have way quality, relevant content than any of the sites ranking above mine.
Let's take an example.
I'm at #10. The site at #5 has 75 pages dealing with "widgets". Mine has 387. He has 278 backlinks; I have 790. I have PR7, he has PR6. His index page has KWD of 17.65%. Last month when I was #13 I had KWD of 18%, now I'm 25.77% (sounds high, but it is a content-rich site and doesn't look spammy).
He does have the keyword in his domain name, which I don't. But heck, does Amazon have the word "book" in its domain name? Does google have "search engine" in its domain name? Surely that can't count for that much?
He may have the keyword in a higher percentage of anchor links than I do because of the name thing, although I have so many more links that in absolute terms I have the keyword in a higher number of links.
I went up three places on the last update, possibly because I bumped up the KWD, and gained 70 backward links, including from new material I'd posted. I'm regaining lost ground, having dropped from #7 two months ago. I guess I can just muscle my way to the top by continuing to add more content, but I reckon I should be #3 by now anyway. I'd love to know what, if anything, I'm doing wrong.
The site at #5, incidentally, was down during the update. He'd exceeded his bandwidth allocation! Now that he's back up he has an annoying popup on several pages, and flashing adverts. Apart from that it's a very nicely designed site.
You need to cut your keyword density. You might even have to cut it below what you would consider normal. Your site mentions "widget" in almost every sentence.
You also need to concentrate on keyphrases more than keywords. They are easier to get a good ranking, and you will probably have a much higher conversion rate. In your case, "widget" could give you a lot of traffic that is totally uninterested in your services. "widget design", "corporate widget design", "widget services" or even "widget creation" would be better goals for you. Let everyone else have "widget" for now, go for the easy pickings first.
In the mean time, while you are working on those other keyphrases, and actually increasing your sales from that effort, you will almost definitely find yourself creeping up in the "widget rankings.
It can be worth getting an independent eye to have a look over our cossetted creations for things that we are no longer able to see because we have looked at them for so long...
cut down your KWD. Even 18% was too much. With such a high PR you can afford to be nearer to normal language.
Probably good advice. Thanks.
My competitor is at 18%, and five places above me. Last month I was at 18% and 11 places below him. It's a tough call.
My current KWD is actually "normal" -- in that I didn't give any thought to KWD when I wrote the content of the page, but just wrote what I wanted to write and gave links appropriate names. Three months ago I was worried that it might be looked at as spamming, so I cut back from 25% to 18%. The result was a drop of six places (although that could have been caused by something else). So I put the text back the way it originally was and this month went back up three places (again that might have been due to other factors).
I suppose it's possible that I might have gone up more than three places this month had I kept the KWD down. It's hard to know. I can't do a controlled experiment since Google changes, as do other sites. But I'll try cutting the KWD to a lower level and see what happens. I'll keep other changes to a minimum to avoid complicating the issue.
Thanks for the suggestion.
[web-source.net...]
[earthweb.com...]
Others may be able to suggest more recent tutorials.
I usually use external .js files for things like search boxes, newsletter sign-up boxes and drop menus that appear on multiple pages. Use external .js files only for items that are not important as "spider food".
So far as I know, all browsers that support javascript will support external .js files. If a user has javascript turned off, then external .js files won't work. The usual considerations about planning for users surfing without javascript would apply.
Sometimes you can just cut the word out, or replace it with a pronoun. Often times it is best to try and rewrite the entire sentence a few different ways. Create your own thesaurus of words that you can use interchangeably. Mix up the singular and plural. If your keword has a verb form, use it too.
I have list of links at the bottom of a page that sends people to the other (all related) pages on the site. It makes sense to list them like this.
red widgets
blue widgets
green widgets
red
blue
green
wouldn't make sense at all
But if it is hurting I will figure out a way to avoid the repitition.
Anne
16.43% on my top single key word
25% on the 2 keyword phrase
That is leaving the settings as they are.
When the meta tags are excluded I get
19% on my top single key word
32% on the 2 keyword phrase
Is that way too much?
Anne