Problem with Google not picking site up correctly

[galahad2]

Hi,

I am having a strange issue with a site of mine where Google has crawled and picked up the site, but it only comes up in results if I search for site:[my domain] in Google search. If I search for the main keyphrase in the title (which also happens to be the name of the domain) it doesn't come up in results at all- even though the title and META tags all check out ok (I checked them on Hypergurl and ScrubTheWeb etc. and other SEO checkers)

I looked through Google's webmaster central help but there doesn't seem to be anything on this exact topic- and I can't see why, given the good META tags, good title and relevant copy in the pages, it isn't coming up at all unless I search specifically for the domain.

Anyone got any ideas as to where I should start looking to see where the problem lies?

Thanks

[Slade]

Is this a new site?

Did the site vanish at some noticeable point in time?

Have you poked at the webmaster tools google provides to see if google is having problems with your site?

Fess up. Did you pay someone for links or traffic or ranking boosts?

[galahad2]

Hi, thanks for the reply, in answer to your questions:

It's a fairly new site but as I mentioned it's been crawled by Google- just not properly.

All I get with the webmaster tools in my Google account is "No data" but then I only set the site up inside my Google account for analytics in the last week.

No, didn't pay anyone for any links or other ranking boots, it was a straightforward manual submission via google.com/addurl

Interestingly the site comes up right at the very top for my no.1 search term, in Yahoo and in Bing - so surely a Google-related issue.

Hope you can shed some light on it anyway...

[jimbeetle]

Basic question: Does the site have any incoming links?

[galahad2]

It has some, yes- from some local business directories, a LinkedIn profile etc.

[Robert Charlton]

Everything you're describing suggests lack of good inbound links....

...some, yes- from some local business directories, a LinkedIn profile etc.

Most local business directory links don't transmit PageRank. The LinkedIn profile probably doesn't have much link juice that will help you.

...comes up right at the very top for my no.1 search term, in Yahoo and in Bing...

This is generally a sign of link quality problems. In my experience, Google is more rigorous about assessing the quality of a link source page than either Yahoo or Bing. That said, you should take some hope from this... that Yahoo/Bing users might find you up top if they search your keywords, and if they like your content, you have a chance of getting some inbound links out of it.

...it was a straightforward manual submission via google.com/addurl

Manual submissions are pointless on Google. If your site has good enough inbound linking to rank, Google will find you without a submission. If you need to tell Google where you are, Google may index you, but your site isn't likely to rank.

...good META tags

Google doesn't use meta tags for ranking purposes.

To do well on Google, you're going to need some inbound links from pages that are relevant to your site and are considered high quality by Google. This generally means that you're going to need good enough content to motivate the link.

[galahad2]

Ok, thanks for the reply- guess the problem now is working out which pages / external sites to create links to my site on- and which of these are considered by Google to be of high quality.

The other problem is, sites that are relevant to or similar to mine are also going to be competitors to a degree so they may not wish to exchange links.

Any ideas as to what the best way forward might be for this?