Forum Moderators: open
(BTW, when I say "obscure", I mean search results show us as #2 of 100,000 / #7 of 30,000 / #4 of 10,000 / #2 of 12,000 - that sort of obscure.) ;)
Also, make it a point to give many links to it from your inside pages with the keyowrds you want in the links..
Spread the wealth (PR) around, if you have an internal page with a high PR5 for instance link it to a page that has a low PR.. if your new/fresh page is low on PR then give it a few links from quality on topic pages from your own site.. I wouldn't just link to it though for the sake of it.. if its a pointless link from the contact page it will help no one.. IMO :)
Craig
The minor changes you are making probably do not account for your wide changes in ranking. You are seeing the typical see-saw pattern of pages which are being spidered by Google's Fresh-bot, but have not been deep-spidered by their "real" indexing robot. I didn't see where you said so, but I'd guess you've got a relatively-new (weeks or 1 or 2 months-old) site, and few incoming links. In this case, the only reason you appear in the search results is because of fresbot listings, and those are temporary. If the freshbot doesn't come back around within a few days, your site plummets or disappears. And some factors which determine whether it will revisit in time to prevent a drop are beyond your control.
However, most of this nonsense will settle down to a tolerable level once you site has been deep-spidered. One month after the deep spidering, your site will appear solidly in the listings, and you will start to see only a minor impact from the fresh-bot; Your site may move up or down a few positions in the results, but usually stay on the same page at least. This will happens because you are well-indexed in the permanent index, which serves as a basis, and then you can gain or lose a few "points" based on the freshbot visiting you or your competition and providing a temporary boost or demotion from that baseline.
Do a site search here on WebmasterWorld for "Everflux" for a lot more discussion of this phenomenon. And remember four things:
1) Google's spidering cycle is approximately one month long.
2) Results from a new deep-crawl take a month after that crawl to show up. Freshbot will tease you with a guesstimate of your new rank in the meantime.
3) If you just miss a deep-crawl with a new site or page, it may be two months before that site or page shows up "solidly".
4) Don't panic! Update your page(s) every couple of days if this makes sense to do. This will keep the freshbot interested in revisiting you, and get you through the rest of the month (or two) while waiting to be listed in the "permanent index". "The waiting is the hardest part." - T. Petty
HTH,
Jim
I'm sort of an old hand at the web design game but just now REALLY learning to focus on search engine optimization. Now, as my job and personal projects are depending more on search engine results (and understanding), it's of great help to have resources like this.
Stephen
Welcome to WebmasterWorld [webmasterworld.com]!
Thanks for your kind remarks. The freshbot is great at keeping the index updated, but its actions cause massive fear and unreasonable doubt among new-site owners who don't understand its side-effects, or recognize the fact that getting into the "permanent" index can take two months. Take a look at the number of "Help - My new site banned after only 2 weeeks!" posts to see what I mean...
And we're all so used to click/load/it's-there instant gratification on the Web that two months seems an eternity!
Jim
Actually, my site's been up for several months now and I'm picking up some decent backlinks and traffic is slowly increasing.
My paraoia is stemming from a number of changes I've made to the site recently. Particularly mod_rewrite to make my URLs look more search engine friendly.
In addition, I've been paraoid about the Poll I have on my site... it seems like Google has only spidered the main page and the poll home page. I was scared that there was something to do with the placement of my poll on the page that was causing the Google spider to stop and not look any further.
In the same sense, I'm not sure why the other main site sections aren't showing up in Google.
I know that the freshbot is at least looking at the main page and the poll home page. But perhaps I just need to wait until the next big crawl and things will start showing up?
Thanks for welcoming me to the board by the way!
Stephen
If your spider-friendly links work in a browser, they'll work for Google. You can test with the web-based wannabrowser tool if it'll make you feel more confident.
Causes for paranoia (in no particular order):
...Probably a few more, but the point is that if your site is designed with users in mind, has worthwhile content, functions well with most browsers (with and without JS enabled and frames), and doesn't employ deceptive practices, then it'll do fine, and all you'll need is maybe a few minor tweaks to better match the keywords on the pages with the terms that your visitors are actually searching for to do even better.
If you've done all that and are still on page six because the competition uses spammy techniques, then you can either report them, or just wait until Google catches on and give them a nice fat PR0. It is Google's intent to catch them, too, so remember that if you are tempted to emulate any technique not directly beneficial to your vistitors...
I'm not an SEO guru, so I'd suggest browsing the threads in here for better advice. But Google's goal is to provide the best search results for their users, and they have no intent to punish any Webmaster who does not cheat. They have no desire to distort the requirements for a good, user-friendly, useful web site. Sometimes, they suffer a technical glitch - their machines are programmed by people after all - but I have never had any trouble with clean, usable sites on reliable servers.
Like I said, there's a lot of fear and unreasonable doubt related to Google simply because they are number one in the search business - and the strange effects the freshbot causes with respect to new sites appearing and disappearing. Because they are number one right now, doing well in Google is likely to be the determining factor in doing well on-line. But it is still a good idea to make sure you rank reasonably well in the other major search engines just for insurance/backup/assurance.
The higher your Google page rank, the more often the fresh bot will visit, and the deeper all of the Googlebots will go in your site. A new incoming link will require the same amount of time to "register" with Google as a new page or link on your own site - up to two months. So again, no instant gratification. It is a slow process, so use the time to read here and other in places, improve and expand your content, solicit on-topic incoming links with relevant link-text, and work on usability issues.
Or go outside, enjoy the day w/friends and family, and do something else for the rest of the month - It's better for your blood pressure. Don't worry. Be happy. :)
Hang in there - No use in being a highly-successful, rich, fatal heart-attack victim... :o
Jim
