Hi again AJ10 ~
I'll refer you again to the information in a previous answer to you
about submitting to search engines - with some information on
optimization tips thrown in - information which is still sound and
still works. It hasn't changed since August.
- http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=244455
=============================
Top Search Engine Placement
=============================
Trying to design your site for search engine results placement (SERPs)
is like shooting at a moving target. Every time you master one
'trick', the search engines change their algorithms and you have to
start all over again trying to weight your page with the current
configurations to stay on top.
Funnily enough, sites with keyword rich *RELEVANT* content seem to be
able to maintain high placement without having to do a lot of changes.
The key is relevant content, good HTML and links TO their sites.
=============================
How Good Search Engines Work
=============================
It helps to understand that the search engines responsibility is to
deliver the most RELEVANT results for a search query. The
responsibility is to the searcher, not the website owner.
Take a look right now as Yahoo! seems to be trying to catch up with
Google's advances in search engine technology. Microsoft, too, is
rumored to be looking to initiate its own search engine. It becomes a
"contest" or "war" to see who can deliver the best results, and
subsequently, the most customers (users) of its services.
This competition can only be good for those searching - as search
engines strive to deliver sites containing relevant information and
delete sites with garbage from their indexes. Ideally, sites which
really DO have content will be delivered. While the search algorithms
aren't perfected yet, changes are introduced daily to get better.
The best way to measure relevance would be to personally check every
page to see if there is really content there at all. Unfortunately,
with 3.5 billion pages in an index, that's highly impractical.
Therefore, search engines work on impartial mathematical algorithms.
Certain factors are weighted more than others to deliver the results.
Sometimes the weighted factors are obvious, even to the casual
observer. Therein lies the problem; if you and I can see what's
happening, it is pretty safe to bet everyone else can, too.
Unfortunately, there are always some who will exploit obvious
'weights', whether or not anything relevant is on their websites.
The good news is that if we see it, so do the engineers working on the
algorithms. Eventually changes are made to render obvious exploits
irrelevant.
Basically, that's what happened with meta tags and other factors which
at one time "worked" to increase SERPs and are virtually worthless
now.
Google's PageRank works, even though it's not totally perfected, on
the simple premise that if you have good, relevant content, other
sites with good relevant content will be more willing to link TO your
site.
It is to no one's advantage to link to garbage sites - unless it's a
'garbage site' itself.
This is why sites with keyword rich content tend to stay high in SERPs
while others bounce all over every time a change is made to a search
engine's algorithms.
==============================
So What About Powerjams.com?
==============================
I can see a difference in Powerjams.com from when I last looked at it.
It's a good start! You are to be congratulated for adding content, but
there is still room for improvement, and you still need to work on the
HTML and other recommendations made.
I also noticed an identical site on HTML Manager which will get you
penalized in a hurry for duplicate content -
https://www.htmlmanager.net/userpages/roger/
also https://www.htmlmanager.net/userpages/roger/drumlessons.html
and other pages with identical content.
Google specifically warns against duplicate content and/or doorway
pages in its Content Guidelines - Specific Recommendations:
"* Don't create multiple pages, subdomains, or domains
with substantially duplicate content.
* Avoid "doorway" pages created just for search engines,
or other "cookie cutter" approaches such as affiliate
programs with little or no original content."
- ://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html
If I could find it, Google's bots and other search engine crawlers
will find it, too, and it could very well get you banned.
If you wish to keep the page and link to other pages on powerjamms,
make sure you have it as a separate site with separate - not DUPLICATE
- content.
==================
Search Results
=================
I used your number one term in both your keywords and description
metatags, "drum lessons"
Searching for the term "drum lessons" with the quotation marks
resulted in about 37,300 results, and www.powerjamms.com showed up for
the first time on the 7th page of results (or in 67th position).
- ://www.google.com/search?q=%22drum+lessons%22&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&start=60&sa=N
And the HTML Manager sites showed up before your powerjamms.com site
did, because HTML Manager has a better PageRank than powerjamms.com
Searching for the term drum lessons without the quotation marks
resulted in about 324,000 results, and www.powerjamms.com showed up
for the first time on the 7th page of results (or in 61st position).
- ://www.google.com/search?q=drum+lessons&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&start=60&sa=N
To the casual observer, all those listings ahead of yours had:
1. The term drum or drum lesson in the URL; and/or
2. A greater PageRank than either powerjamms.com or the HTML
Manager site.
You may have increased some outgoing links; but the links TO your
site, from other relevant sites, have not increased. Powerjamms.com
has a PageRank of 4/10, and only four links TO the site listed.
- ://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=link%3Awww.powerjamms.com
There are only 62 pages that "contain the term" www.powerjamms.com, too.
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=%22%2Bwww.powerjamms.%2Bcom%22
The simple fact is that the sites above yours have factors which are
weighted better than www.powerjamms.com, which places them ahead in
SERPs.
===========================================
What Is Page Rank & How Do You Get Listed?
===========================================
Google explains the best way to get listed in its "Webmaster Information":
"The best way to ensure Google finds your site is for your
page to be linked from lots of pages on other sites.
Google's robots jump from page to page on the Web via
hyperlinks, so the more sites that link to you, the more
likely it is that we'll find you quickly."
- ://www.google.com/webmasters/1.html#A2
and explains how pages are ranked in search results in "The Basics"
"The method by which we find pages and rank them as
search results is determined by the PageRank technology
developed by our founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin."
- ://www.google.com/webmasters/1.html#A1
Google's technology is explained in its technology in "Our Search:
Google Technology":
"The heart of our software is PageRank?, a system for
ranking web pages developed by our founders Larry Page
and Sergey Brin at Stanford University. And while we
have dozens of engineers working to improve every aspect
of Google on a daily basis, PageRank continues to provide
the basis for all of our web search tools."
and its PageRank in "PageRank Explained"
"PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the
web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of
an individual page's value. In essence, Google interprets
a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for
page B. But, Google looks at more than the sheer volume
of votes, or links a page receives; it also analyzes the
page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are
themselves "important" weigh more heavily and help to make
other pages "important."
Important, high-quality sites receive a higher PageRank,
which Google remembers each time it conducts a search. Of
course, important pages mean nothing to you if they don't
match your query. So, Google combines PageRank with
sophisticated text-matching techniques to find pages that
are both important and relevant to your search. Google
goes far beyond the number of times a term appears on a
page and examines all aspects of the page's content (and
the content of the pages linking to it) to determine if
it's a good match for your query."
- ://www.google.com/technology/index.html
Obviously, one of the things you need to do to increase your chances
in being found under the search terms you want is to make sure there
are links TO your pages from relevant sources.
The key word is "relevant", and Google specifically warns about using
link schemes and link farms in its "Quality Guidelines - Basic
principles":
"Don't participate in link schemes designed to increase
your site's ranking or PageRank. In particular, avoid
links to web spammers or "bad neighborhoods" on the web
as your own ranking may be affected adversely by those
links."
-://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html
and more strongly in its "Quality Guidelines - Specific recommendations":
"Avoid hidden text or hidden links"
- ://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html
=================
Basic HTML
=================
I had previously mentioned watching the basics of HTML, including:
* DOCTYPE Declaration -
I think you might be very unpleasantly surprised to see how some other
browsers render your pages with a proper DOCTYPE Declaration. It makes
you wonder what search engine crawlers are seeing when they crawl the
pages.
White Background, White Type -
Even though you are using a blue background image, you are also using
an off white background color and white type. Since search engine
crawlers cannot "see" or interpret images, your page may appear to be
'hidden text' by the Google crawlers. It might be wise to set your
background color to a blue color to prevent that interpretation.
===============================
HTML What Google Recommends -
===============================
==========================================
What Else You Can Do To Improve Placement
==========================================
Here's what Google suggests in its Design and Content Guidelines:
"* Make a site with a clear hierarchy and text links.
Every page should be reachable from at least one static
text link.
* Offer a site map to your users with links that point to
the important parts of your site. If the site map is
larger than 100 or so links, you may want to break the
site map into separate pages.
* Create a useful, information-rich site and write pages
that clearly and accurately describe your content.
* Think about the words users would type to find your pages,
and make sure that your site actually includes those
words within it.
* Try to use text instead of images to display important
names, content, or links. The Google crawler doesn't
recognize text contained in images.
* Make sure that your TITLE and ALT tags are descriptive
and accurate.
* Check for broken links and correct HTML...
- ://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html
==========================================
Google Links For Your Reference
==========================================
Here are some important links from Google's Webmaster Information and
Webmaster Guidelines. Webmasters who follow the guidelines and avoid
Google's "Thou shalt nots" usually have no problem getting listed and
showing up under the search terms they desire.
* How Do I Get My Site Listed on Google?
- ://www.google.com/webmasters/1.html
* My Web Pages Are Not Currently Listed (a good 'primer'
on how and why Google works so well)
- ://www.google.com/webmasters/2.html
* PageRank Information (covers both Google's PageRank and
SERPS)
- ://www.google.com/webmasters/4.html
* Webmaster Guidelines (contains both the dos and don'ts)
- ://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html
* Google Facts & Fiction (can you buy your way to a
high ranking in Google?)
- ://www.google.com/webmasters/facts.html
* Search Engine Optimizers (some good advice on what to look
for if you're going to hire a Search Engine Optimizer)
- ://www.google.com/webmasters/seo.html
* Frequently Asked Questions (pretty much what it says, but
definitely worth wading through)
- ://www.google.com/webmasters/faq.html
================================
Other Sources of Information
================================
There is also good information from many of the top search engine
optimization experts, such as
* Detlev Johnson, Search Engine Guide
- http://www.searchengineguide.com/detlev/
* Danny Sullivan, Search Engine Watch
- http://www.searchenginewatch.com/
* Jill Whalen, High Rankings
- http://www.highrankings.com/
* Shari Thurow, Web Pro News (and quoted all over the Internet)
- www.webpronews.com/
who all have columns or newsletters to which you can subscribe and
keep abreast of the best way to use good content for better
positioning in search engine results.
In addition, Webmaster World - http://www.webmasterworld.com/ - has
discussion boards on most of the search engines. While some of the
discussions are anecdotal and/or questions for information, there is
usually enough discussion to keep abreast of what seems to be
happening.
There is an entire section devoted to Google at:
- http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum3/
It never hurts to keep track among these discussions, but remember,
trying to optimize for search engines only is like trying to hit a
moving target. You'll notice among the more experienced contributors
to the discussions - plus the SEO experts listed above - that there
really is no substitute for content, relevant links and good HTML.
=======================
Summary
=======================
You have made some changes with relevant content, which is good, but
it's only a start. Paying attention to Google's recommendations,
increasing the amount of sites which link TO yours is also important,
and good HTML rounds out the formula for good placement in Google's
search engine.
Two sites with identical content is very likely to get one or both of
the sites banned from Google and other search engines. It is never a
good idea to have identical sites, period - and if I found it, so can
your competitors, who might turn you in for 'spamming'.
It's also a sure bet that eventually Google will find them, too, and
there are dozens of anecdotal reports on Webmaster World of sites
which were banned because of duplicate sites.
As for Yahoo! Their search engine is different from Google's, but
there are enough similarities that if you can meet Google's standards,
you should be able to meet other search engines' standards. It would
be safe to assume that Yahoo! will be working as hard as Google to
ensure search results deliver relevant material.
Work toward improving the site and providing relevant content. Pay
attention to those who are in the know so far as search engines (such
as Webmaster World, etc.), and clean up the HTML to make it easier for
crawlers to get to your content and see what you intend for the public
to see.
Hope this helps,
Serenata |
