I have a web-site online for the past 2 months.
http://www.horse-racing-profits.com. The data shows that it's indexed
and in the Google directory.
But the Page rank is 0. I've just gotten links from 4 good directories
- dealing only with racing - in the past couple of weeks.
As long as the Page Rank stays at 0, there isn't much chance of
getting a good
ranking (in the top 30) on any Keywords. 
How long does it take until Google assigns a good Page Rank? I guess
all new
sites start at 0. Are we talking weeks, or months?
Do I need more links? (In order to get a better Page Rank?)
I know of a few companies that have only one link - Yahoo - and they
have
a good Page Rank.
Do you recommend that I do the same? It's very expensive - $299.00US.
(I'm from Canada. That translates to over $400.00 Canadian). But if I
have
to, then I'll do it.

I appriate your help.

egy

Hi, 

What webmasters call the Google Dance happens about once a month
depending on your ranking. Your thought that most websites start as 0
is erroneous, most of the sites I bring up start at 4 or 5, so it
really depends on your site. Having outside links will help and you
might see a change in the next week or so.

Your site looks good as far as SEO stuff goes. You have good text
amount, your headers are nice and clean and you don't have any spam
stuff in there. I would add a robots.txt file to the site. Make a
basic text file called robots.txt and place it in the top area where
the index.html is, and only put this line in it at the very top.

User-agent: *

Save the file in Unix format if you can. This will "stabilize" the
robot and keep you from bouncing around too much on the Google Dance.

I would also make a file called sitemap.html and put links to each of
your pages in that file. This isn't really necessary on your site, the
way it is structured, but can't hurt and might help as your site
grows. Like to it with a basic <a> tag, no javascript or roll overs
from the index.html file and from two of the others. Add a small
description of each of the links so that you have text in the page and
not just links. You can basically hide this somewhere at the bottom of
the page, it's not really for humans to read, it is for the bots.

Your site is young, and it can take up to three months before you are
on the index at all. The 0 is temporary, I can almost guarantee that,
with your content and structure. Do those things and wait for a month.

Also, submit your site to DMOZ as soon as possible, this will help
your ranking quite a bit. As much as a full rank up.
http://dmoz.org/add.html

It can take several months for DMOZ to add you, so do this soon. 

thanks, 

webadept-ga

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Request for Answer Clarification by egy-ga on 30 Dec 2002 18:17 PST

Hi;

Thanks for the info. 
I'd like to know your opinion about a Yahoo listing. Do you feel I'll
get a
decent Page Rank without it? (I just submitted to DMOZ as per your
suggestion.)
Because of the steep price, I'd rather not submit to Yahoo. With the
current setup between Google and Yahoo, I'll be in Yahoo anyway (once
I'm in Google). The only advantage to a Yahoo listing is if it
improves my Google Page Rank significantly.

Thanks for your help,
egy

---

Clarification of Answer by webadept-ga on 30 Dec 2002 18:51 PST

Hi again, 

It will improve, probably as good as DMOZ. I do know you are not
guaranteed a listing, even if you pay. All you are guaranteed is that
they will look at your site. They are very particular about what they
list as a business and what they don't. So it is possible that you
will pay and never hear from them again. They also do not explain why
sites are rejected. Read the agreement carefully.

I would think about doing this in March if your pagerank is not as
high then as you would like it to be. Also, before you do that I would
ask someone to go through your site and make suggestions for raising
the pagerank before doing that, expect to pay somewhere between
$50-$75 for a full report and suggestions on changes. If you have them
make the changes themselves, it could run up to 600-1000 depending on
what they do.

Much of it you can figure out yourself, just search the GA board here
for webadept-ga and robertskelton-ga, both of us have answered several
questions on this topic.

thanks, 

webadept-ga

Hi webadept;
Thanks for a very good answer to something that I needed guidance.
It'll save me some money.