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Now what has got me worried is that the site is ranked low for its main keywords and is ranked higher for the other charity related keywords. And since I am now entrusted with the job to improve its rankings at google for product related keywords, I am facing the dilemma whether to tell the client or not that her cause is hurting her sales. I am afraid that I might offend her coz as per the site, the charity seems very close to her. Also, the problem is compounded by the fact that me and my client are oceans apart and only contact between us is e-mail.
What are the suggestions here - whether I should tell the client or I should leave this as it is and work on more towards getting more and more of product related links which would eventually give a boost to the site's rankings at google. I think by working towards getting more and more product related links, I would increase the chances of the site getting found for its targetted keywords and get associated less with the cause and more with the products. I would be happy if the latter can work but I'm not sure.
Also, I would like to get opinions whether I am correct in assuming that the site's charity links are hurting the main targetted keywords at google because as per google going through the incoming links, the site's more associated with the cause rather than the products.
Because sooner or later she will find out.
Shak
I don't believe that the charity links can pull down the effects of other incoming links, though, particularly if you can get some relevant links from higher PR sites. Google states that things that other sites do can't hurt you, and I tend to believe them. If off-topic inbound links could adversely affect your rankings, this statement wouldn't be true.
You should try working on the link text of the links from the charity site to help with your relevance boost.
I think that Teoma pays a lot more attention to the pages associated with inbound links than Google does, though I don't know whether links from off-topic pages could hurt you. Again, I would doubt that they do.
>dilemma whether to tell the client or not that her cause is hurting her sales
web_india, I agree with Shakil about telling the truth, but it's not certain what the whole truth is yet. What I would tell her at this point is that there may be some impact on rankings, just to alert her to the possibility, and leave anything more to further along in the process.
What you might want to look at, since you say most of the links are coming from the charity site, is how much linking is being returned from the product to the charity site, and if so, what the context and the link text is in any links pointing to that site. If the keywords related to the charity are on product site pages in link text that's a factor that might be having influence, but until you get in and go to work on the site it's impossible to know exactly what's doing it. So there's no point telling her too much.
It may be that the product site is ranking better for irrelevant terms because it just isn't focused well enough on the right keywords, and once that's corrected it won't even be a factor or a hindrance.
Well, in our original talks, I had the client outline what the GOAL of the site was, so that I could build that functionality into it. The goal in this case was to:
#1: Facilitate donations
#2: Provide useful information
So in my communication I iterated the pitfalls in their request relative to their "stated goal" (that it would decrease their web presence, etc.).
It's always a good idea to have the client think about and then write down what is to be accomplished by their web presence. This is essential.
The client can not then be slighted by any suggestion you make when you are only serving the ends of the client's "expressly" stated needs.
thanks martinibuster, for the useful suggestion. from now onwards, I'll definitely add this extra step.
>> but until you get in and go to work on the site it's impossible to know exactly what's doing it.
I guess so Marcia, the site has hundreds of pages and am going through all of them now to understand exactly what's going on.
I think you have a point here Robert as the site's pr 5 must have been as all these links added up.
I am wondering if it would be "ethical" to change the anchor text on the links to suit the product site. May even seem more feasible if the products were part funding the charity. Worth a 0.02 thinkover
I would make a new section of the site, even a new site or subdomain and use the charity oriented page to link to the product oriented page. Not all the PageRank will be channelled to the products section, but the links will have anchor text matching the title and body text of the products section.
Google's 'one click theme' approach should respond well to this (it looks at the content of pages linking to a page but not the pages linking to the linking pages).
The products section should have some external links if you can get them. I would say at least one, an ODP listing is fine. I don't know how this last part works (internal vs. external; number of links as well as PageRank, or whatever) but it seems to matter.
How well would this work for other engines? Would the reduced link popularity for the new section hamper listings?
