Hi mades32388 ~
Please understand that Google Answers Researchers are not employees of
Google and we are not privy the the workings of the Google search
engine rankings. Google closely guards its search algorithms, so it
would be hard to give you a specific reason for your site's particular
fluctuations. I can, however, offer some educated guesses and make
some suggestions.
As you may know, the Googlebot does a massive crawl every 4 to 6
weeks, indexing the entire web. During this time Website page rankings
and search results often change, even from one moment to the next.
Fluctuations in search results rankings can occur for any number of
reasons and are the subject of a lot of speculation and research by
webmasters.
1. You asked, "Why dont I show up as a search result in the directory
- is it that maybe google needs to update it?".
Your guess is probably right. If you just got listed, it will take
some time to show up in the directory. Google explains in its Page
rank information
- ://www.google.com/webmasters/4.html
"We update our index every four weeks. Each time we update our
database of web pages, our index invariably shifts: We find new sites,
we lose some sites, and sites ranking may change. Your rank naturally
will be affected by changes in the ranking of other sites."
Google recommends, "You may want to check and see if the number of
other sites linking to your URL has changed. This is the single
biggest factor in determining what sites are indexed by Google, as we
find most pages when our robots crawl the web and jump from page to
page via hyperlinks. To find out who links to your site, use Google's
link: tool."
In its Webmaster Information page
- ://www.google.com/webmasters/2.html
Google also states in No. 1, Changes from one index to the next: "It's
also possible your rank decreased because other sites were found and
assigned a higher rank."
And finally, it could merely be a technical glitch.
==================
2. You stated, "for some reason now when you check the "link to" on my
site now ... "
I used Google's link to tool, typing both
"link:http://www.heavenlytreasures.com" and
"link:www.heavenlytreasures.com", and in both cases your site came up
first, listing:
- www.heavenlytreasures.com/earrings-diamond.html
and
- www.heavenlytreasures.com/privacy.html
The link you posted above
(://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&q=link:CUTtrsbw3XIC:www.qksrv.net/click-1231823-9915697)
did not return on even the first page of returns.
If you have listed your business with Commission Junction, however, it
would not be unusual to find a link to your site through Commission
Junction's listings, as that is how they list the information for
their own tracking purposes. See Commission Junction's FAQ's regarding
their tracking: "How does Commission Junction track leads and sales on
the Web?"
- http://www.cj.com/faq/corporate.jsp#10
Your main page (index.html) probably wouldn't be listed in Google's
link tool, because that lists pages linked TO your website.
===================
3. You stated/asked, "To go one step further if you search for "Fine
Jewelry" I show up on the 3rd page 7th position down under the
"hijacked" link. Before the update my site used to show up (I think it
was on the 4th page though). I hope the new addition to DMOZ might
bring back my better results but I guess I wont know until the next
update."
Note that the categories you have chosen and under which you are
listed in DMOZ, namely:
- Regional > North America > United States > New Jersey > Counties >
Monmouth > Business and Economy
and
- Regional > North America > United States > New Jersey > Business
and Economy
are entirely different than the search terms you are looking at in
Google, namely: "Fine Jewelry"
While the DMOZ listings do not hurt you, neither will they help much
with a ranking under "fine jewelry". If you want your DMOZ listing to
help for the search term "fine jewelry", you should list your site
under that category in DMOZ.
==================
4. Coding Problems
In the first link under its technical guidelines -
://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html - Google says, "...
If fancy features such as Javascript, ... keep you from seeing all of
your site in a text browser, then search engine spiders may have
trouble crawling your site."
Using Lynx to look at your coding, there are some errors in the
javascript in your headers. Specifically, your header seems to include
a table, and does not validate with W3C standards or other validators.
This would makes it very hard to index your site.
Information on the W3C validation service can be found here:
- http://validator.w3.org/
And there is no doctype declaration on your pages,
- http://www.htmlhelp.com/tools/validator/doctype.html
Both of these would tend to produce erroneous information or
information which one of the specific Google robots may not be able to
index properly.
=========================
Recommendations:
1. Per Google's recommendations, download the Lynx browser and use it
to see what the Google robot is basically seeing to list. Download
sites for the Lynx browser can be found here:
- http://www.trill-home.com/lynx/sources.html
2. Make sure your page meets as many of Google's guidelines as
possible. Google's guidelines are at:
- ://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html
3. Use the validation tools of W3C as listed above and your document
type declarations in order to assure browsers and robots are seeing
what you want them to see.
4. There is an excellent information page on search engines and search
engine rankings by one of the Internet's foremost Search Engine
experts, Danny Sullivan. This is Search Engine Watch,
- http://www.searchenginewatch.com/
Search Engine Watch has information, news, and other helpful hints to
help you maintain a good page ranking in the search engines. Whether
or not you subscribe, using the site for informational purposes can
and will help you with your rankings.
Using the suggestions above, including the information available in
Search Engine Watch, will help not only your Google search engine
rankings, but your rankings in other search engines with which you are
listed.
I hope the above addresses your concerns and that you'll soon be on a
more comfortable footing!
Warm regards,
Serenata |
Clarification of Answer by
serenata-ga
on
13 Mar 2003 16:04 PST
Hello again ...
I see what you are talking about with the Commission Junction showing
up in your Google results. I notice also that CJ made some changes in
February, so I am wondering if those changes didn't affect your Google
rating on its last crawl.
I was checking searching under "fine jewelry", too, on other sites,
hotbot.com, netscape.com, teoma.com, yahoo.com, and see that Overture
similarly "hijacks" your links in some of those search engines.
As I stated (and cited) from Google's information, it could possibly
be some temporary "glitch", but as an educated guess, your changes
occurred about the same time the Commission Junction links showed up.
By the process of elimination, I would be inclined to look to an event
at CJ for this change.
As a member of CJ, you can log in to your account and contact them.
You might ask them why the CJ link now shows as your results, and who
"click-1231823-9915697" is.
I really am unable to pinpoint a particular event in answer to answer
your question - but in this case, it does seem to coincide with the CJ
addition to your search string, and that seems the logical place to
start.
I hope this helps,
Serenata
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