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So far, so good. However, here is the rub. I have been promoting a real site, for a client, let’s call it BostonWaterWorks.com. To avoid confusion, I should make it clear that the city is not Boston and the utility is not a Water Works, but it is this general idea. Someone else develops it and hosts it. It is dynamically generated, asp pages. So far I have not altered the content, but I have added optomised static (html) pages. These are listed on a ‘site map’ that is linked to from the home page. I have submitted in the normal way, by hand to the majors and by Top Dog to the also rans, no paid for listings. It ranks well enough in the engines for terms such as BostonWaterWorks.com, ‘boston water works’ and ‘boston water’. It also performs well for terms like ‘boston water supply information’ and ‘boston water quality information’, this information is listed on the site and is the main purpose for it. The point is that all the search engine results come from the asp pages and none appear to come from any of the static pages.
In other words, a technique which works much better than expected for the trial site does not seem to work at all for the ‘real thing’. Any thoughts why?
1/. Have the search engines spidered and indexed your new pages on the site that has problems?
2/. Do the phrases have a similar amount of competition?
3/. Do the incoming links have good PR themselves?
4/. Do the incoming links include the keyphrase in them?
You ask: Have the search engines spidered and indexed your new pages on the 'water' site. I don't know, how can you tell?
When I answered, above, about the questions 2,3 and 4, I was not clear enough. I short the broad answer is that these are largely the same for both sites except that the trial site has a DMOZ listing. Otherwise the links on the 'real' site include those on the 'trial' site plus some more. The amount of competition for the respective phrases is of the same order of magnitude for each site.
However, when I answered 'Have the search engines spidered and indexed your new pages on the 'water' site. I don't know, how can you tell?' I didn't mean to imply that I couldn't tell if the engines had spidered the site but rather that I couldn't tell if they had indexed the static pages. How can you tell that?
I suspect that they have not. This may be the nub of the question! Is there any way of encouraging this?
Incoming quality links, specifically to those pages, not the site in general. Easiest way to do this is changing internal linking, give them perhaps a link from the index page or any other high ranking page.
I've experienced it first hand where a new site bounces up and down for three months between PR 3-8.
Could dmoz be that crucial?
It sure can mean a lot - especially since Google grabs DMOZ content for their directory as well.
However, if you're having trouble getting the new site accepted at Open DIrectory, you can always beef up things with other heavy-hitter links. Sounds like a free Yahoo regional listing might work here.
I don't really expect there to be any difficulty in submitting the 'real' site to OD, it is full of good quality information for the public, and although technically 'commercial', it is not selling anything but providing information on a public utility. I would hope to get into a regional Yahoo free too. I just didn't want to rush into that and make a mess of it.
I agree with tedster. Somewhere on one of the forums in webmasterworld I think I remember seeing some advice by Googleguy that said: a good ranking on either Yahoo or DMOZ is important in Page Rank. Although he did not say why that should be important, I suspect it is because both those directories use human editors who evaluate a site not only for inclusion or exclusion, but also for position. If that is the case, it is almost as if Google does not trust its algo enough, and gives a high score to human selection and opinion, in whatever complicated mixture they use to establish page rank.
I did not submit the 'trial' site to OD either but it ended up in there, and in the google directory too. How did that happen - could it be Top Dog?
...Googleguy that said: a good ranking on either Yahoo or DMOZ is important in Page Rank. Although he did not say why that should be important, I suspect it is because both those directories use human editors who evaluate a site not only for inclusion or exclusion, but also for position. If that is the case, it is almost as if Google does not trust its algo enough, and gives a high score to human selection and opinion, in whatever complicated mixture they use to establish page rank.
rmjvol
Also, as I recall the source for this info (that a Yahoo or DMOZ listing was important) I recall it as not speculation, but an outright statement of fact from a Google source: if not Googleguy here, then somewhere else where someone from Google was interviewed in an online news article. Unfortunately I just cannot recall the exact source, but I remember it struck me at the time, and has stayed with me, because it was from Google, and it was a statement of fact.
I did not submit the 'trial' site to OD either but it ended up in there, and in the google directory too. How did that happen - could it be Top Dog?
In fact, one of my colleagues submitted the trial site (pens) to OD, a few months ago. At least that explains that!
However I am still puzzled why none of the optomised (static) pages from the 'real' site (waterworks) have turned up in any of the search engines at all. I have taken a unique phrase from one of these pages and searched for it in a dozen search engines, but get no results. The site itself is listed in most engines but none of the static pages are. I am not asking why do they not have good PR, but why are they not there at all? Just for the record they were posted on 2 August and are linked to from a site map which, in turn, is linked to from the home page.
