Greetings, surftown!
Since I had almost completed an Answer for you before my browser
crashed and I lost the lock, I'm going to go ahead here and post it as
a bonus for you:
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First, the Good News:
When I ran a Google Search for the keyword "auditions", your site came
up 9th.
Now, the bizarre Bad News: Despite its high ranking in the Search
Results, your site has a Page Rank of 0. This may mean that the
Googlebot is upset with your site for some reason. However, their have
been a lot of weird things showing up since the last massive Google
crawl last month, and the general consensus among webmasters who spend
a GREAT deal of their time investigating some things is that there
were some unusual new "quirks" introduced in Google's Indexing and
Page Ranking algorithms.
Page Rank is the extremely complex algorithm (based on more than 100
different factors) that Google uses to decide how "important" a page
is, and thus how high it will rank in Google Search Results.
One of the MAJOR factors in determining a site's Page Rank is how many
other sites with a Page Rank of 4 or higher link to that page.
You can determine a site's Page Rank using the Google Toolbar, which
is an add-in to Microsoft Internet Explorer. You can read more about
the Toolbar, and download it, here:
<http://toolbar.google.com>
Remember that links from a few ***quality*** sites with related themes
who link to only a few other pages (including yours) will do far more
to improve your Page Rank than links from one hundred other pages that
also link to hundreds of other sites.
So let's take things one thing at a time:
You're right, it not only looks like the http://www.auditions.com site
is Under Construction, I was able to find a nearly identical snapshot
of their site on the Internet Archive Wayback Machine going clear back
to November 28, 1999:
http://web.archive.org/web/19991128142000/http://auditions.com
What's really strange, however, is that Auditions.com has still
managed to finagle a Page Rank of 5, despite the fact that their site
has only one page. Part of the reason may be that they have 3 links to
Amazon.com -- which is, in the Googlebot's eyes, a VERY important site
-- but almost certainly the biggest reason is that there are,
strangely, 24 other sites with a Page Rank of 4 or higher which link
to them:
://www.google.com/search?q=link:Kt-wI7S57QYJ:www.auditions.com/&filter=0
However, the Googleys and the gang over at DMOZ/ODP (Directory Mozilla
/ Open Directory Project) have been very adamant that they do NOT want
to index sites that have very little content or are "Under
Construction".
From the Forums at WebmasterWorld:
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posted by member SEO is my Bag Baby on April 2, 2001:
"I have a site that is currently under construction but I will have
the whole e-commerce site done soon. I would like to submit the home
page to crawler-based search engines so that they can spider it and
index it on the next re-index. However, most of the links off of the
home page don't work since I haven't built all of the site sub
structure yet. What should I do? Will the spiders see the links and
get mad because they point to 404's? Should I just go and put up a
short index.html at every place that I link to (i.e.
www.domain.com/subdirectory/index.html - this file would just say,
welcome to subdirectory or something like that). I would like to get
the page indexed asap so any help would be great.
Basically, would it hurt to submit?"
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posted by Site Administrator Brett_Tabke on April 2, 2001:
"What's the benefit? The 404's would be disregarded and you'd have to
resumbit anyway. google, Alta, Fast would hit it in a couple of days
anyway. Ink, Excite (good luck) or Northern light would be the only
real ones you might get away with it."
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posted by member CaveToad on April 4, 2001:
"Yeah, I'd have to agree with Brett ( who wouldn't? ) There could be
any number of issues between your Submission of the incomplete pages
and the finished copy. Your server could go down, you could get
assigned other project work, you could run into technical issues with
the ecommerce you're putting up. Anything. Basically then you'd be
screwed since you'd get badly indexed if at all. Just put it up when
you're done, set it up well to be picked up and indexed and you'll be
all set. There are no 'head starts' with this business."
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http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum27/169.htm
Yes, there is a way to report sites who appear to be in violation of
Google's Guidelines.
*** HOWEVER ***
Dealing with violation reports costs time and effort on the part of
the Googleys, so this function should be used sparingly, and only when
the presence of an actual violation has been verified and documented.
If no violation exists, no action will be taken against the site, so
this functionality is of no use to webmasters who may try to sabotage
a competitor's Page Rank and Search Result Ranking. It won't result in
any penalty against the competitor's site, but it WILL make the
Googleys really, really MAD (and that is not a good thing!).
***************
From Google's "Webmaster Guidelines":
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"Help us maintain the quality of Google results.
Trying to deceive (spam) our web crawler by means of hidden text,
deceptive cloaking or doorway pages compromises the quality of our
results and degrades the search experience for everyone. We think
that's a bad thing.
If your Google search returns a result that you suspect is spam,
please let us know using this form. We investigate each report of
deceptive practices thoroughly and take appropriate action when abuse
is uncovered. At minimum, we will use the data from each spam report
to improve our site ranking and filtering algorithms. The result of
this should be visible over time as the quality of our searches gets
even better. In especially egregious cases, we will remove spammers
from our index immediately, so they do not show up in search results
at all. Other steps will be taken as necessary.
Google appreciates your taking the time to help us improve our service
for web searchers around the world. By helping us eliminate spam, you
are saving millions of people time, effort and energy. We think that's
a good thing."
---------------------------------------------------
://www.google.com/contact/spamreport.html
When submitting a report for this site that is "Under Construction",
be sure to include the following information:
---------------------------------------------------
Site http://www.auditions.com ranks #1 in a Google Search for the
keyword "auditions", despite the fact that it has only one page, and
is "Under Construction".
According to the Internet Archive Wayback Machine, the site has
remained virtually unchanged since at least November 28, 1999:
http://web.archive.org/web/19991128142000/http://auditions.com
---------------------------------------------------
Now, you didn't ask, but there's a second part that goes hand-in-hand
with your Question:
What can you do to improve your own site's Page Rank and Search
Results Ranking?
1. <meta> description and keywords
While most major Search Engines no longer use the <meta> keywords and
description to determine relevance because of attempts by webmasters
to "cheat" by "spamming" these fields with hundreds of irrelevant
words, it's my understanding that some of them will still use these
fields as one way to cross check against your actual text to ensure
that your pages are really what they say they are. In addition, some
Search Engines, in certain circumstances, will use one or both of
these fields as the description for your page when it comes up in a
Search Result.
Furthermore, some of the smaller Search Engines still do look at
these, and those that don't **won't** penalize you for using them. So
I do encourage you to use them sensibly, knowing that they are not
going to be a major factor in how well your website does in Search
Results.
For these reasons, you still want to do a good job with your <meta>
keywords and description.
I recommend changing:
<META NAME="description" CONTENT="The Complete Online Audition
Resource">
to something like:
<META NAME="description" CONTENT="Auditions.net - TV, Film, Movie,
Theater, Commercials">
and changing:
<META NAME="keywords" CONTENT="Performing arts, arts resource, dance,
acting, film, stage, television, casting, resumes">
to something like:
<META NAME="keywords" CONTENT="audition, auditions, cast, casting,
call, calls, tryout, tryouts, act, acting, actor, actors, actress,
actresses, TV, television, movie, movies, film, films, theater,
theaters, theatre, theatres, dance, stage, screen, video, resume,
resumes">
2. Page Titles
This is a **very** important part of getting your site's pages noticed
and indexed by Search Engines: it differentiates the pages on your
site to Search Engines, and it increases the odds that **at least
one** of your pages will come up in a Google Search for your relevant
keywords.
Each page on your site should have its own title, specifically
targeted to that page. It should include the main keywords for which
you'd like that page to appear, with the most important words first.
Keep it to ONE line. Don't use ALL CAPS. Make sure each word has a
space before (except for the first word) and after (avoid running
words together with punctuation, for example "Auditions/Casting
Calls"; rather use "Auditions / Casting Calls". On your Main Page,
your Title should include the name of your business or the overall
subject of your site.
For your Main page, I recommend that you change:
<title>CASTING CALLS BY TYPE All television Film</title>
to something like:
<title>Auditions & Casting Calls - TV Television Film Movies Stage
Commercials</title>
3. Website Text
Now, for
*** THE ABSOLUTELY MOST IMPORTANT THING ***
*** THAT YOU CAN DO FOR YOUR WEBSITE ***
-- the text.
The best way to convince a Search Engine that you have a lot of
important content is to put a fair amount of it on your home page. So,
my suggestion would be to not show current listings on your main page
at all (but maybe include a hyperlink entitled "Most Recent Listings"
and instead replace them (in front of your menu definition in the html
code, if at all possible) with at least 2 or 3 well-written paragraphs
describing the purpose of your business and the content on your
website. These paragraphs need to consist of actual sentences in good
English grammar and not just lists of keywords -- the Googlebot can
detect the difference, and it considers lists of keywords to be a
"spamming" attempt.
You can include more than that on your main page, but be careful not
to overload the visitor with TOO much at one time. If you've got links
on your front page to your other pages, the Search Engines Spiders
will find the text on those pages, too.
You can use the <meta> keywords list (which you have already
laboriously fine-tuned) as a "checklist" for the text on your main
page.
If you feel that any of the words in your keyword list are especially
important, and you want them to be indexed by Google, then you MUST
make sure that they appear at least once -- preferably 3 times, but
don't overdo it! -- somewhere in this TEXT.
I noticed that while you do quite well for the keyword "auditions",
you're not even in the first 200 Results for the keyword "audition",
so be sure to include the singular form of that word in your text in
at least 3 places.
4. Backward Links
Now, I recommend that you IMMEDIATELY print off a hardcopy (it may not
be there for long) of the list of sites with PR of 4 or higher which
link to Auditions.com:
://www.google.com/search?q=link:Kt-wI7S57QYJ:www.auditions.com/&filter=0
Your goal is to nicely approach the webmasters of these sites, and ask
them if they would be willing to include a link to your site on their
page (I would NOT recommend suggesting that they remove the
Auditions.com link). If you are able to get links to your site on even
a handful of those sites, it could do a great deal to improve your
Page Rank.
(By the way, the Showfax pages at http://www.showfax.com have PRs from
4 to 6 -- perhaps they would be willing to throw a link your way?)
FINALLY -- WHY DO YOU HAVE A PAGE RANK OF 0?
The Googlebot considers all of the following to be sneaky attempts to
cheat at Page Rank, and it will penalize -- or ban entirely --
websites which employ these techniques. Have you:
- used invisible / clear / 0-point font to include text on your pages?
- used auto-submit and/or auto-rank-checking software or services like
WebPosition Gold?
- participated in "link farms" (which have pages and pages of hundreds
of links)
- set up identical (or nearly identical) sites at other URLs?
If so, you're going to have to do some damage control.
You **definitely** need to get rid of these nearly-identical pages,
which are likely hurting your site's Page Rank:
http://www.filmws.org/wwwboard/messages/1154.html
http://www.film-makers.com/bbs/messages/4385.html
http://www.film-makers.com/bbs/messages/4309.html
http://www.bbrent.com/wwwboard/messages/2014.shtml
I hope that you have found this information to be exceedingly useful.
Best wishes for increased Page Rank and traffic for your website!
Regards,
aceresearcher |
