Wondering about subdomains

Should my Amazon store be separate?

[miki99]

Well, my original art website was a victim of the recent changes Google made to its ranking system, and dropped from page 3 for my favorite search term to page 28, last time I looked. I have lost all my Google traffic and don't have much to lose.

I'm wondering now if my main site would be better off if I made my Amazon.com store a separate subdomain. My store has really been growing lately, and I've been adding a lot of items (books, jewelry, etc) that are only vaguely related to my site's main fantasy art niche. So I'm wondering if that's what dragged my site down. Any thoughts on this?

I actually know next to NOTHING about subdomains. My impression is I would have to put the whole store into one folder, then designate that a subdomain. The store is in a couple of different folders now, (there's basically a fairy store and a dragon store, though I could break it down more than that) so it will take some rearranging.

I'm also wondering--it's not a good idea to have your pages too deep in the site's directory structure, right? Putting all the store files into one folder will drop all the html pages down yet one more level--though then again, if it's a separate subdomain, maybe that wouldn't matter?

Also--when I make a folder a subdomain, will all my urls change?

Or--should I just wait it out for awhile, and see if my site rebounds in Google rankings?

Sorry about all the questions -- as you can see, I'm pretty clueless. :-)

[Quadrille]

There's no reason why amazon content should be 'dragging down' your main site.

On the other hand, splitting your site means dividing your incoming links between two, doubling your marketing effort - and accepting that an affiliate site virtually never picks up links, and is not eligible for most directories.

And a subdomain might just as well be a separate domain, for SE purposes.

Much better to concentrate all your stuff on the one site - and find out what the problem is.

How do you fare on other SEs?

[miki99]

Thanks so much for your reply, Quadrille. That all makes sense, and I didn't look forward to splitting up my site anyway.

I don't have a clue how to find out what the problem is. My site had been stable under my most important keywords for so long. One thing I did do yesterday was remove a lot of superfluous keywords from my store's navigation system. Possibly these excessive keywords in anchor text were seen as keyword spamming. Just have to wait and see if that makes a difference, I guess.

I fare fairly well in other SE's such as Yahoo and MSN, but they only account for a small percentage of my traffic. Without my Google traffic, the past 3 days I've had only 1/4 of my usual traffic.

Thanks again.

[miki99]

I found these comments on the Google Webmaster Guidelines page:

"Avoid "doorway" pages created just for search engines, or other "cookie cutter" approaches such as affiliate programs with little or no original content.
If your site participates in an affiliate program, make sure that your site adds value. Provide unique and relevant content that gives users a reason to visit your site first."

This worries me, as even though the Amazon store section of my site wasn't created just for search engines, it doesn't really have any original content! What it does have is a particular theme, with items that fit that theme.

[Quadrille]

It does pay to 'personalise' your amazon pages as much as you can; and it's another reason for binding them close to other pages - while they won't drag you down, they certainly won't do much about bucking you up, either - so being part of a content-rich site makes the best of them - without harming your main site.

Remember that the 'worst' duplicate content can do is get itself unlisted - but it will not hurt.

[miki99]

That's good to hear (OK, read) -- though it does confuse me even more as to why my site was banished to the Google netherworld, or what I can do about it.

I was over at the official Amazon affiliate forum today, and everyone there seems convinced Google has it in for affiliates.

[Quadrille]

I think that's overstating the problem - Google does not 'like' affiliates, as, by their very nature, they are presenting duplicate content.

But as you'll have read here in many parallel discussions, duplication can result in a 'supplementary listing, or at very worst, being unlisted. But that applies equally to any content duplicator.

You can minimise the effects on your site by maximising the 'unique nateur' - reviews, discussion, etc., and also by ensuring the pages themselves are 'right' - unique title tags, meta descriptions, etc.

I'm very happy with my amazon affiliation - but it's a small fraction of my site, and I'd never consider making a site that was 'entirely amazon' - I think people want it too easy, and life just doesn't work that way!

... so they blame Google? Go figure!

[miki99]

I agree that many people are much too quick to look for someone to blame when things don't go quite their way.

I do have unique title tags and meta descriptions for all my store pages. I don't really have reviews or discussions however, just the Amazon descriptions, which of course are duplicate content. I've been intending to get around to adding book and movie reviews, but it's hard to review items like jewelry.

I've been working obsessively on my Amazon store the past few weeks, and was really starting to be pleasantly surprised by the way things were going. I THINK perhaps at least part of the problem might be that MY Amazon store is now MUCH bigger than the rest of my site -- it's become an Amazon store with an original art website attached.

I guess maybe it's time to build up the rest of my site. Working on the store is just so much more fun. ;-)

[Beagle]

If you think in terms of "added value" for your Amazon products, you can make both your visitors and the search engines happy. The question is always why someone should buy something through your site instead of going straight to Amazon for it. That's where your own written content comes in, either to convince visitors that they want something they didn't know they wanted until they saw it on your site, or to draw visitors who want to see what you have to say about a product.

BTW, most Amazon associates would say that more integration into the site is better than more separation from it. Write a review of a book, and put the ad for the book (and maybe some other related ads) on that page. A "review section" of the site could be one way to build up the site in general and still keep the Amazon products distinct from your original artwork.

On one site, I do have a "store" section, but I keep it mostly as a visitor service (where people new to the niche can find the basics - with the help of my comments of course ;) ) because I really sell very little through it. Most of my sales come through links on pages related to the item(s) being advertised, even if it's just something like, "If you want to know more about this, you may be interested in..." rather than a full review.

[miki99]

That sounds like great advice, Beagle. Thanks so much for your thoughtful input.

"The question is always why someone should buy something through your site instead of going straight to Amazon for it. That's where your own written content comes in, either to convince visitors that they want something they didn't know they wanted until they saw it on your site, or to draw visitors who want to see what you have to say about a product."

I absolutely realize that. I hand-pick items that relate to the theme of my site, so might be of interest to the visitors I attract. It seemed to be working increasingly well, until my site went down the Google flusher a few days ago.

I know you are completely right about the written content. I have written all of ONE movie review so far, and have sold many more of that DVD than anything else. However, I've also sold multiples of quite a few other items, mostly ones that relate most closely to the theme of my site (a certain fantasy art niche).

I do intend to add more original written content -- I've just been having so much fun adding items. ;-) Though that has been nipped in the bud while I try to figure out how I fell afoul of Google.

My current theory is that I may have been guilty of ALT attribute spamming, among other things. It's just been so easy to take the keyword-rich titles of the items (as they appear on the Amazon pages) and insert them into the ALT attributes. I've realized that's an AWFUL lot of duplicate content, and I'm presently deleting ALL of my ALT attributes to see what happens...and go from there.

[Beagle]

If you're hand-picking your items, there are reasons you picked each one. Just a statement or two about why you chose them will let the visitor know you did hand-pick them and didn't just throw a bunch of theme-related products on the page (which is what a lot of people do).

The purpose of alt tags is to tell people who are browsing by text-only, including search engine spiders and sight-impaired people using screen readers, what the image is. If the only place the item is named is in an image, screen-readers won't be able to read it, so an alt tag that includes the name would be useful to both text-only browsers and to search engines. If the name is already in text, having each name twice would seem to be overload. According to web standards, though, each image should have an alt tag. If you don't need to add anything to the text, you could use an empty alt tag ("") (just the quotation marks, not the parentheses), which helps the browser/'bot/whatever move faster because it knows it doesn't have to hunt for a description. It's rather handy that text-only browsers and search engine spiders "read" the same stuff. Write for one and, in most aspects, you're writing for both. (I'm still learning about this, but this is how I understand it.)

[edited by: Beagle at 2:02 pm (utc) on Sep. 21, 2006]

[miki99]

Beagle, thanks so much! All this is exactly the kind of information I've been looking for.

I spent much of yesterday searching for info on what exactly I should be putting into ALT tags (and not really finding it, but I did find and bookmark a lot of other great info/articles on SEO), AND deleting all my store products ALT text. I will go back afterwards and insert quote marks.

You've also inspired me to add my own descriptions/comments to all my products -- that will take awhile, but I'm sure it will be time will spent.

Thanks again.