Google - So Frustrating

#1 (**permalink**) 04-18-2007, 02:11 PM

OK I have a few sites and all of them have a pretty decent showing in MSN and a couple in Yahoo. I can't seem to break through and rank in Google!

What gives?? Any advice?

lisa · #2 (**permalink**) 04-18-2007, 05:46 PM

Welcome Webber!

The key with Google is backlinks. They want to see how many people are linking to you. If your site is very new and you don't have many key links into your site, then you won't rank well for your optimized keywords.

Patience is definitely key with them because it takes time. I didn't see your site in your sig file/profile so I couldn't tell, but also make sure you are continually building content and using the basic SEO meta tags.

amybiddle · #3 (**permalink**) 04-18-2007, 07:58 PM

I was thinking the same thing as Lisa.

Backlinks (inpointing links from other sites to your site) are the way to get Google's attention.

Post some articles, get in some directories (the higher the Google Page Rank the better) use signature files in niche-related forums...

After you have 50 (gulp) or more backlinks, Google starts givin' you some love.

Oh- and they're the toughest to please in all categories:
1- Google won't credit you for all of your pages of content
2- Google won't count all of your links (or as many as Live or Yahoo)
3- When they change their algorithm all your indexed pages may fall off the search engine scene for a while.

But...

Right now, at least, they're the best show in town (in some categories). They've made me happy, upping my PageRank as my site has grown (I'm pleased to have a PR4 now - makes me smile - and that will continue to grow).

But I've learned from some folks that they ignore Google and focus on Live and Yahoo more - and those SE's bestow upon them copious traffic in return.

That's why they make chocolate, vanilla and strawberry, right?

Lisa's right: over time, as you build your site (lots of high-value content and meta tags and good keywords) you will win.

#4 (**permalink**) 04-18-2007, 09:35 PM

Thanks for that info. I've done the article submission thing and that is bringing me some traffic (mainly ezinearticles.com) but I guess I just have to be patient.

Live and Yahoo are bringing me good hits but I know from talking to many people Google can really do wonders for your traffic so I want to capitalize on it if I can.

Yes Amy, thank goodness for the various flavors.

Have either of you (or anyone else reading) ever submitted to Yahoo's $299 directory? And if so, has it been worth it?

amybiddle · #5 (**permalink**) 04-18-2007, 09:50 PM

Hey Webber -

You know I did consider the Yahoo directory at one time - but I spent the same amount of money very early on getting help with writing a number of articles (to get me started - mostly for posting at ezinearticles) until I could write good ones of my own. I had a like-minded friend who was a writer.

Honestly I haven't looked back - and Yahoo seems to like me just fine.

lisa · #6 (**permalink**) 04-19-2007, 12:09 AM

I would agree that spending time submitting articles to the various directory sites as Amy did is a much better investment than the $299 Yahoo submission.

Now, I will admit, I did pay for the listing for two of my sites and if you have the budget for it, it certainly can't hurt. But these days, there are so many other ways to get Google to notice you (ezine articles, backlinks, blogs, etc.) and I don't believe that the Yahoo directory submission is as useful as it once was.

But the only reason to submit to the directory would be for the benefit of having a high quality link pointing to your site. You won't get a lot of traffic from people browsing the directory. My fitness site gets a decent amount of traffic from it, but my web hosting site hardly gets any.

The bottom line with Google is they want good quality, unique, content-rich websites. That's what draws in advertisers and supports their bottom line. Remember, their main product is content so that's why they are very selective about how they include/rank pages. Quality is everything to them and it's why they've been so successful.

#7 (**permalink**) 04-19-2007, 12:48 PM

Thanks so much. You've just saved me $299 bucks! I think I'll wait and try other ways of building my traffic... and more importantly get Google to love me by building up my incoming links!

Another question. What about sitemaps. Does that help with your listing/ranking?

webdev · #8 (**permalink**) 04-19-2007, 05:38 PM

This is such an interesting thread. I didn't wanted to be left out so im gonna jump in as well

As I'm building a site, actually two sites, one is totally content based (php tutorials) and the other is service based (free image hosting), at some point i would need to figure out the marketing part of it.

I too once consider listing (one of old project which no longer exsists) at yahoo directories but with a fee of $299, i backed off. I did submit them to free unknown directories but they didn’t generate any traffic and didn't increase my pageranks.

i'm really lost in terms of getting backlinks and traffic. I just don't know what are the poeple with successful sites do to get their pagerank up and get so many backlinks. Where do they put their links? random Blogs? random forums? Directories? but then which ones? DMOZ seems to be so strict on who are they going to include. I havn't had any luck with them. Sites like mayspace? Digg? Stumbleupon?

As a starter (with no back links) where can i go to get some initial traffic from? I have no problem with google/yahoo to index my webpage but building backlinks and getting traffic is what drove me crazy and i end up shutting my website (community based deal site). I think sticcit is going to end up like that too.

One thing i did notice with my phpgeeklog blog site (which only has one article up yet) is that people started linking to it themselves. I submitted my site in digg.com (in their programming section) and with in a week i had people linking to my tutorial. The reason i think people did that was because it provided something useful for the people in terms of value as oppose to my community based sites. So, getting people recognizing something which is useful is not hard and it will pickup popularity by itself. But getting people to use something which might not have something in value is hard and im having doubts if my image hosting project will end up in trash bin as well. But im hopeful about this one because it give people a service that they can use for free.

So coming back to the thread and the real question which is what you need to get rank high on google? I would say start from the basics. First Make sure your site doesn't have nay broken links. As Lisa pointed out, get meta tags in there on ever page. Find out the best/high traffic keywords for your niche. Make sure you submit your links to your articles to community based sites like digg.com. With google it all depends on backlinks. There are thousands of way you can build those and i don't know all of them which is part of the whole mystery

lisa · #9 (**permalink**) 04-19-2007, 10:31 PM

Webdev,

You hit the nail on the head with your comment about you were offering something useful on your php site. Do something different that other PHP tutorial sites aren't doing and people will link to you voluntarily just because your site is different.

I get e-mails all the time from people thanking me for providing something no one else does. That is key. Be thorough in whatever niche you're targeting and present the content in a way your competitors aren't. People will gladly link to you voluntarily.

Stumbleupon has brought my fitness site an AMAZING amount of traffic and I had never even been there to register until recently. I remember I hadn't even heard of the site but kept seeing it show up in my referrer logs.

As you said Webdev, it's a combination of so many factors. I think if you work at building them all, Google will eventually show you love. And DMOZ is so overrated now. 5-6 years ago it was a must-have link and a guaranteed Google listing, now you can get in with the many strategies we've discussed here.

lisa · #10 (**permalink**) 04-20-2007, 01:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by webber

Another question. What about sitemaps. Does that help with your listing/ranking?

Sitemaps alone are not going to boost your ranking, but it's just another way to let Google know about all your pages. I haven't seen any proof that having a sitemap has helped my rankings, but I have noticed my new pages appear in the index much faster. I would certainly encourage everyone to have one.

#11 (**permalink**) 04-20-2007, 04:54 PM

Webdev,

Have you tried partnering up with other PHP related sites with decent PR's?

webdev · #12 (**permalink**) 04-20-2007, 06:12 PM

Nope! how does that work?

lisa · #13 (**permalink**) 04-20-2007, 07:10 PM

I think what Max is asking (and correct me if I'm wrong, Max) is have you e-mailed other people with sites like yours and requested some kind of link exchange? You put a link on your site to them and vice versa.

But the key to that is not just creating a "Links" page where you list all your partners. Search engines are ignoring those because they know people are just using those link swap pages to inflate their # of backlinks.

You need to build contextual link swaps. For example, on my fitness site I have an article about getting six pack abs. Another webmaster who has a site similar to mine asked for a link swap? So instead of just adding him to a long list of links on a page, I incorporated the link to his site within a relevant article on my site.

The search engines look more favorably at those kind of link swaps than the pages on your site with 100's of links to other partner sites. It's a lot of work finding these people but 5 or 6 really good link swaps can really help your overall positioning in the SERPS provided you're doing this along with other strategies we've mentioned in this thread.

Now as your site starts getting traffic and you show a Page Rank of at least a 3 or 4, you can start being more selective about who you exchange links with. For example I never exchange links with anyone less than a PR 4. But if your site is new obviously you can't be that selective in the beginning. You need to start somewhere.

So I woud go to Yahoo Directory and drill down to the category that best fits your site. Start reviewing some of the sites listed there and see if they are willing to do some kind of link exchange with you. And actually suggest a page where you think your link will fit and vice versa. If you're proactive and make it look like you really read their site, you'll get a higher response rate.

And more importantly make sure that when you send them the text that goes on their site (your site description), use keywords that you are targeting. So for your PHP tutorial site, you would want the linked title to be something like "PHP Tutorial Site". The search engines look at how people are linking to you to help determine how you rank for certain keywords. That's so very important.

#14 (**permalink**) 04-20-2007, 10:16 PM

Yep, Lisa that's what I meant but you put it in much better terms then I would have. LOL I think that's an important point when you talked about the link exchanges. I too used to have that dreaded link page that you speak of and would do link swaps with people. I never got traffic from those pages and I'm sure my pages didn't bring my partners traffic either.

I will try to adobt the "contextual method" that you speak of. Makes more sense and I see why Google would ignore those.

webman · #15 (**permalink**) 05-04-2008, 09:57 PM

Do you need sitemaps for blogs too? If so, where can you get one?

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