Outranking My Site....

sammyspam · #1 (**permalink**) 04-18-2008, 05:01 AM

Ive recently done alot of work submitting my site to forums.. youtube.. Digg... and other places like that. These forums are my main competition and have over 600k+ members. Compared to my 100 something.

My site ranking for my main keywords has moved from the the 4th page in google, to about the 2nd.

However some of the posts ive made (links in my singature on these forums) on my competitors forums are outranking my site itself! My Digg submission and youtube videos are also wiping the floor with my actual site... Any suggestions on getting my actual site onto that first page and maybe getting ahead of these?

lisa · #2 (**permalink**) 04-18-2008, 08:21 AM

The forum links may be outranking your site because the forum itself has a good "quality score". If you want your page rankings to increase you're going to have to get more backlinks from other quality websites in your niche. The best "vote" for your site (according to the search engines) is an inbound link from another heavily trafficked site related to yours.

Forums, digg, stumbleupon, etc. are good but what the search engines really want to see is other people voluntarily linking to your site without you linking back because that says to them that your site must be pretty useful and relevant for your topic if other popular sites give you a free link.

And that just comes down to providing the best darn content in your niche to get other people's attention. But the fact you have moved to the 2nd page is a good thing. Keep working hard and you'll eventually move up.

sammyspam · #3 (**permalink**) 04-18-2008, 09:09 AM

does having my link in my forum signautre count as an inbound link? Is this helping me? Cause i make an effort to post on thier forums regularly.

I cant write an article about my site on these forums, because as you would expect they dont want competitors advertising.

They do have affilates which i eventually want to become one. However my site isnt quite big enough to be considered worth thier while for the moment.

EDIT:
This day gets better and better... my site has been taken off google. for the following reason: 'We can't currently access your home page because of an HTTP error (403)'

So whats this error? Well i checked googles FAQ.

403 (Forbidden)
The server is refusing the request. If you see that Googlebot received this status code when trying to crawl valid pages of your site (you can see this on the <strong>Web crawl</strong> page under <strong>Diagnostics</strong> in Google Webmaster Tools), it's possible that your server or host is blocking Googlebot's access.

Umm.. okay?

lisa · #4 (**permalink**) 04-18-2008, 11:05 AM

Signature links in forums may help some but they aren't as beneficial as they once were. Search engines can now tell the difference between a signature link and an inbound link from another site quite easily. Say you have 500 posts here on WebsiteBabble.com. That means you'd have 500 threads with your sig file on them. The problem is, your sig file is duplicated on every single thread so the engines no longer consider this a high quality backlink. It's too easy for anyone to achieve links in sigs through forums, so they've been devalued over time.

On the flip side, say there are 500 different websites (in your niche) that are linking or recommending you in different ways and using different verbiage to describe your site. THAT is much more beneficial and the search engines give a lot more credit to those kinds of backlinks then signatures in forums or signatures on article sites, etc.

No, the point is not to advertise or write articles on the forums. That's not going to fly with most forums and as you said, that would be spamming. So the key is to get more unique inbound links from other sites as I described previously.

Now forum sigs are still beneficial because you can draw clicks from other members who are curious about your site. But don't look for them to give you many quality backlinks anymore.

Re: your Google issue. Have you checked with your web host about this?

sammyspam · #5 (**permalink**) 04-18-2008, 11:24 PM

Well right now as far as backlinks go, im doing google searches for the keywords im focusing on and topics related to mine, and checking out these websites to look for ways to get links on them, if i cant get a good inbound link then i just settle for a link in my forum signature

I havent checked with my host, i appear to be re-listed in google now. I think this is actually the 2nd time this has happened. Considering my site was off google for probably 12hours or so.. doesnt make me feel very happy

I also just noticed my page is no longer on the 2nd page under my main keyword.. its dropped as far back as page 4. Does this have anything to do with the fact it was offline for 12hours? If so.. im even more angry...

lisa · #6 (**permalink**) 04-18-2008, 11:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sammyspam

I also just noticed my page is no longer on the 2nd page under my main keyword.. its dropped as far back as page 4. Does this have anything to do with the fact it was offline for 12hours? If so.. im even more angry...

It's probably more of the fact your site is new. New sites always bounce around in the search engines. And even if the downtime was a factor, your site will bounce back.

sammyspam · #7 (**permalink**) 04-19-2008, 01:41 AM

I had a look and theres a few new sites using my keyword (completely unrelated to my category mind you.. something to do with buildings)

I also noticed its been pushed back because ive added my sites link to alot of new sites, and these are outranking my site.

Even this thread is outranking my site!!!

lisa · #8 (**permalink**) 04-19-2008, 10:33 AM

Trust me when I say don't sweat it. You'd go bonkers analyzing your site and examining every shift in rankings. (I used to do that.) Just keep building and marketing and you'll eventually outrank the unrelated sites, etc. Just takes time.

sammyspam · #9 (**permalink**) 04-19-2008, 10:26 PM

alright Lisa, i trust you.

Thanks for the words of wisdom.

WB Sponsors