Hi Michael,
You site has been indexed by Google. Do a Google search for "the
Waterfront and Shoreline shopping districts" (with the quotes).
I have found multiple problems with your site, which are valid reasons
for it not doing well in the search results.
Duplicate Content
-----------------
You have duplicate content on another site, long-beach.com
Google guidelines say:
"Don't create multiple pages, subdomains, or domains with
substantially duplicate content."
://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html
Google will have noticed that the two domains have the same content.
Normally in this situation Google determines which site is the main
one, and which is the copy, and it ignores the copy. However there
seems to be some kind of glitch, because when you check for Backward
Links to long-beach.com, all the links are actually pointing to
longbeach.com.
Perhaps one was re-directing to the other?
Links
-----
Google relies on a site's popularity to provide relevant search
results. Essentially each link to your site is a vote for its
popularity:
'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." '
://www.google.com/technology/index.html
All the links to your site are coming from your other sites, or are
listed as partner sites on Boulevards New Media sites like:
http://www.saltlakecity.com/
In an election these would be seen as buying votes. Obviously such
linking schemes degrade the quality of search results, because the
"votes" for your site aren't genuine.
"Don't participate in link schemes designed to increase your site's
ranking or PageRank".
://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html
Yes, Google would consider the links from your other sites to be a
link scheme. All of your sites are liable to be penalized by Google
because of this. I thoroughly recommend striving to get some more
genuine links pointing to your site(s).
It appears that longbeach.com has been picked on because it is not
linking back to your other sites - this isn't particularly logical,
but Google's algorithm is complex, and this is the only notable
difference longbeach.com has from your other sites.
Florida Update / Filter
-----------------------
A few weeks ago Google updated its index, and it has been dubbed by
webmasters "The Florida Update". At the same time Google introduced a
filter to combat the use of artificial link strategies to boost
ranking.
A month ago, having a single phrase in every link to your site, and
using that same phrase in on-the-page optimizing, was an extremely
powerful strategy, albeit in a grey-area of Google's guideines.
With the Florida update there have been a huge number of sites
targeting commercial keywords drop out of the search results. Debate
is continuing, and an agreement on what has caused this is far from
being reached. I have been in discussions involving many experts in
the field, and this is my own take on what has happened:
1) Google uses the words in and around links to a page as a ranking factor
2) Either due to the introduction of stemming in the search results,
or just a general desire to make results more relevant, Google
introduced a filter to dampen the affect link text has on sites that
are using link text to influence search results
3) Link text works great for non-commercial sites, so the filter only
affects commercial keywords (possibly those that are bidded on in
Google Adwords)
4) The filter dampens the affect of all links pointing to a page,
internal or external
5) The filter only kicks in when it sees the same keyphrase repeated
over and over again
6) The filter might then also look for on-the-page optimizing for that
phrase, and possibly determine whether a page is being overly
optimized
7) Sites affected by the filter almost always drop a few hundred
spots. I think that this is because link text was the only factor that
had them so high in the first place, but it could also be a set
penalty
There have been a few tricks that show how the results would be
without the filter. Currently adding:
+and OR +the
...to your search query works. It might not work tomorrow. Doing a search for:
long beach +and OR +the
...shows your site at #85. This is the rank you would have without the
filter kicking in and demoting your ranking, apparantly knocking it
out of the top 1000.
Google will have noticed the similarity of all the links pointing to
your site - not just the anchor text of "Long Beach", but the
surrounding text also being the same. On this basis it has applied the
filter.
It's important to realise that while all sites that have dropped
rapidly conform to my ideas of what is triggering the filter, not all
sites that fit the criteria have been affected.
The Solution
------------
Based on the new filter, and the way Google works out search ranking,
the "trick" of having lots of sites linking to yours using your
targeted keywords is on its way out.
The answer is to attempt to get some genuine links pointing to your
site. This is not easy. Ultimately the better your site is, the more
useful it is, the more likely others are to link to it.
Your sites are good local directories, and simply going to other local
sites and letting them know you exist could get you some good links.
Also, if you haven't already done so, submit your sites to Open
Directory, to categories like:
Regional: North America: United States: California: Localities: L:
Long Beach: Business and Economy
http://dmoz.org/Regional/North_America/United_States/California/Localities/L/Long_Beach/Business_and_Economy/
My advice is to retain your inter-site linking for the time being,
because this "trick" is still delivering good rankings for your other
sites. However, this is bound to stop working one day, and if you
don't get some genuine quality links pointing to each of your sites,
you could lose out.
I have tried to summarize what is a tricky and complicated situation.
If any of the above is unclear, or if you have further questions on
this topic, just ask for a clarification and I'll get back to you.
Best wishes,
robertskelton-ga |
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