Hi there,
There are three reasons why your pages are ranking well - your website
is popular, the keywords are in the best places and the search terms
are reasonably rare.
Site Popularity
---------------
The reason Google is such a good search engine is that it uses link
popularity to help determine the ranking of results.
://www.google.com/technology/
There are many sites that link to Wirksworth.org, each effectively
giving a vote for your site:
://www.google.com/search?q=link%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.wirksworth.org.uk
One of the most important links you can get is a listing in Open
Directory. Google's software gives higher ranking to sites listed in
Open Directory and Yahoo.
http://dmoz.org/Regional/Europe/United_Kingdom/England/Derbyshire/Wirksworth/
Combined with the factors mentioned below, this is the reason why you
are at #1 for "wirksworth"
Rare keywords
-------------
Some of the keywords you rank well for are very uncommon:
"eye mead" has 11 results
://www.google.com/search?q=%22eye+mead%22
"One Place Studies" = 191
://www.google.com/search?q=%22One+Place+Studies%22
"Stonecrop Wood" = 12
://www.google.com/search?q=%22Stonecrop+Wood%22
"Bear Mead" = 23
://www.google.com/search?q=%22Bear+Mead%22
"Eye Mead" = 11
://www.google.com/search?q=%22Eye+Mead%22
"Oak Wood Dorset" = 1!
://www.google.com/search?q=%22Oak+Wood+Dorset%22
Note: I have searched for the above as phrases. Google gives higher
ranking when the search keywords are found as a phrase, as they are on
your sites. Without the quotes "one place studies" returns 7 million
sites...
Keyword Locations
-----------------
Google gives added ranking to a page if the search keywords are found
in places other than general text. You have the keywords in all the
correct places:
-Title
-H1 tags
-Links to the page
Google virtually ignores Meta Keyword tags and many web designers have
stopped using them. They have no effect on your ranking.
Hand Coding
-----------
Makes no difference to Google. As long as the code is clean enough to
allow the page to fully load, it doesn't matter whether it was written
by hand or by using software like Dreamweaver.
Own Domain Name
---------------
In my experience Google seems to give websites that use services like
Geocities and Tripod a lower ranking. Having your own domain can also
help if it has keywords in it - that will be a factor in ranking well
for "wirksworth"
If you have any more questions on this topic, just ask for a
clarification and I'll get back to you.
Best wishes,
robertskelton-ga |
Clarification of Answer by
robertskelton-ga
on
10 Nov 2003 13:39 PST
I have yet to see any official confirmation that Google gives extra
weight to H1 tags. However experienced search engine optimizers have
no doubt about it. See what they are saying at WebMasterWorld:
://www.google.com/search?q=+site:www.webmasterworld.com+h1+google
The thoughts of one SEO:
http://www.seohandbook.com/seohSite/content.aspx/sectionID/63
It makes sense to me that:
- filling the page with H1 tags wouldn't be acceptable
- because most webmasters don't change the look of heading tags with
CSS, they just choose whichever size H1...H6 looks best. Therefore
Google will treat each as being just as important (but if your page
uses many varieties, perhaps they will ignore all but H1)
For my sites, I just have a single H1 near the top of the page,
repeating the page title. The exceptions are articles, in which case I
try to have a single H1, plus an H2 above each large section of the
article.
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