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Q: Improve Google listing / rank ( Answered 1 out of 5 stars,   1 Comment )
Question  
Subject: Improve Google listing / rank
Category: Science > Technology
Asked by: hoserjoe-ga
List Price: $50.00
Posted: 19 Jan 2004 00:58 PST
Expires: 18 Feb 2004 00:58 PST
Question ID: 297915
Why doesn't our website (www.aerotraining.com) appear in a Google
Search for "aviation books"?  Our site has the most extensive catalog
of industrial and
technical aviation books in the western world, yet Google displays
such odd things a Chinese books and Russian books. It's in the dmoz
directory, and it's linked to by many other sites.  Some analysts
suggest that we're trying to spam Google because our catalog has
thousands of files on aviation books.  This doesn't make sense to me.

I'm looking for a knowledgeable analysis of what the problem is and
how to implement a stategy of a reasonable placing in relation to the Russian,
Chinese, bankrupt, and Mom-n-Pop enterprise listings.  I've had to do
this before, but our listing suddenly disappeared again, so I'm
looking for a more in-depth answer.
Answer  
Subject: Re: Improve Google listing / rank
Answered By: muhammad-ga on 20 Jan 2004 01:58 PST
Rated:1 out of 5 stars
 
Hello,

I have browsed your page and searched various keywords mentioned in
your website in Google. I have noticed that there are some simple ways
to get the placement and listing for particular keywords that you are
looking for.

Appropriate use of Page Titles.
===================
Page titles are very important consideration for a Search Engine, if
your search for a keyword and the webpage title has the same keyword
it is very likely that the page will be displayed in the search
listing. Therefore, to start with I would suggest changing the Title
of the pages to the text which they talk about. For example the page
of your website which has an exhaustive listing of Aviation Books, I
suggest you change the Title to mention something

Use of Keywords in URLS
===================
(changing Filenames to the keywords you wish to catch in search engine
searches). You must also change filename to reflect the content of the
page. A filename such as ?Aviation_Book_Listing.htm? would definitely
rank higher then the page names something like ?23.htm? some something
like that.


Using the keywords in the page text and links.
=============================
In the Books catalog section, list the books name in order (Tables).
The list appears to be all jumbled up and at the face of it looks a
spam page. You will usually encounter this in pages which display a
long list of keywords to deceit web-crawlers to link to them, though
in your case they all link to genuine pages. This being the main
section which lists the books, change the Title of the webpage to
something like ?Aviation Training > Aviation Books Listing? and in the
subsequent pages which display each individual book use the Page title
as ?Aviation Traning > Aviation Books > BOOK NAME?. In this page
(where individual books are listed) use the link-back to Books Page
(http://www.aerotraining.com/html_gif/biglist.htm). I also highly
recommend changing the URL of the page to something like
aviation_Books.htm, instead of biglist.htm, since url is considered to
be a indicator of the subject/content of the page. That is the reason
when I searched ?aviation big list? (without quoted) in Google, it
displayed your Books page as the very first result. Similarly it is
recommended to use the Book name as the file name. For Example rename
?2549.htm? to ?Airframe Study Guide? so that when two website are in
Google Database, it weights the placement by taking other factors into
consideration of which URL is one of the important factor. This is
possible since the books pages are all static HTML pages.

Making Search-Engine Friendly website and hierarchy
=================================
Google and most search engines consider the Home page (the default
page which opens) of a website to be of prime importance when it comes
to rating the inside links. Links and text place on Home page are
given a ?higher value? than links in inside pages. On the home page of
your website, use the links which are the keywords that you want
search-engine results for. For example, in your home page if you had
made the following as links, then on searching these keywords the
listing would have been higher:
? Pilot Training Textbooks
? Flight Instruction Resources & Tools
? World-wide VFR & IFR Charts!

Design is also important aspect which helps in ranking a website
higher. Google webmaster guidelines
(://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html) recommends:

?	?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. 
?	If you decide to use dynamic pages (i.e., the URL contains a '?'
character), be aware that not every search engine spider crawls
dynamic pages as well as static pages. It helps to keep the parameters
short and the number of them small.
?	Keep the links on a given page to a reasonable number (fewer than 100).?

Linking from other site
==============
One of the important factor which Google considers for placing links
higher in order is the Page Rank. In simple words, the more pages
which link to your website higher the placement in Google. It is also
important that the pages which link to you should have the
?credibility? which is again detrimental of the Search Ranking of
those sites which link to you.

On searching the sites which link to your website (typing
?link:www.aerotraining.com? lists the sites which link to your site) I
came to know that there are only 23 web-pages that link to your
website. If you want to improve your rating in Google (getting your
pages displayed higher when a particular keyword is typed in Google)
you must also get your URL listed in other webpages. You can
considerable improve your listing by putting your product listing in
general website related to Aviation field. Getting your site listed in
popular forums, message boards, Book Store website relevant to your
category of website can also improve your ranking.
For this I would also like to quote advice of my fellow researcher
Serenata: (http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=296297)

?There are many practical ways of establishing links which are
beneficial to you in your endeavor to get respectable position
placement on search engines. These methods may take time, but they
also help in establishing credibility and help with your page rank.

Approach like-minded or complementary businesses about linking to your
site (with a reciprocal link from your own). This works without
harming search engine positioning or page rank.?

Miscellaneous issues
=============
Currently when you search for ?Pilot Training Textbooks? without
quotes, you will notice that yours is the last rank on the first page.
I guess this is an important keyword which you want to lead to your
website like other like Aviation Books. Using of Footer links (links
which appear at the bottom of page) is also considered to be useful in
getting the higher ranking since it improves the PageRank in Google

Google Webmaster information
====================
You may also refer to the Google official Search Engine Optimization
techniques page ://www.google.com/webmasters/1.html
 This page has answers to commonly encountered Google ranking and placement issues.


Recommended Reading
===============
I also recommend you reading the following answers in Google Answers
as they also deal with Search Engine Optimization issues. In answers
to similar questions about improving Search Engine placement Google
Answers Researcher, Serenata has answered in a very detailed and
structured manner how to improve Google listing.
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=289187
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=294414
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=297279
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=296297

	
END NOTES
=======
After employing the above techniques, I am sure that you can
accomplish the needful. Since Google indexes web pages monthly, you
will have to wait till the month end to see the results of employing
the Search Engine optimization techniques mentioned above. You can
submit the website at ://www.google.com/addurl.html.

If you need any further clarifications or want more information please
feel free to let me know.

All the best.

muhammad-ga,
Google Answers Reseacher

Request for Answer Clarification by hoserjoe-ga on 31 Mar 2004 11:11 PST
I think I did this backwards.  I submitted a "Poor" evaluation, and
then saw the widget for clarification after submitting.

It WAS a poor answer.  I know everything you replied with.  I was
looking for a technical answer (see my original query)

I'd like a proper answer or a refund, if you please.

Clarification of Answer by muhammad-ga on 27 Aug 2004 06:01 PDT
Hello!

It has been long since the question was posted. I regret for not
providing what you were looking for. I had tried my best to answer in
detail after a through analysis of many pages of your website.

I was away for a that period from Google Anwers and that is the reason
I couldn't answer your clarification. Please let me know of you still
need any information about your website ranking in search engine.
I have recently answered a question about search engine optimization.
You may want to take a look at that
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=392836.

Regards,
muhammad-ga
hoserjoe-ga rated this answer:1 out of 5 stars
Not useful.  I was looking for an informed analysis from a technical
person and all I got was a vague, semi-academic response.

Comments  
Subject: Re: Improve Google listing / rank
From: serenata-ga on 19 Jan 2004 23:32 PST
 
Hi Hoserjoe ~

Without looking through the other sites and doing an in-depth site
review and comparison, which would take quite some time, I noticed
that:

1.) Your site is still listed in Google's index, and over 800 links
from within your site are listed - which is good.

2.) For the index page, the word "books" is only used within the
page's contents one time, and that's in an ALT tag, although the word
"textbook" is used within the content once.

Have you looked at Google's Webmaster Guidelines and applied every
point to your design?
   - ://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html

Yours,
Serenata

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