Hunter --
First the disclaimer, akin to what Politicalguru-GA wrote: though
Google Answers researchers commonly get questions related to how the
Google search engine treats web pages, we are not employees of the
company and have no special knowledge. That said, we do pay close
attention to search technology and many of us run multiple websites.
Next: Mel and the Party Hats ARE listed in Google. Here are several
searches that find what I'm pretty sure is your web page:
"Mel and the Party Hats"
Result #1
Pagerank: 0
Mel and the Party Hats -- note that there are no quotation marks here
that have all 5 words in order:
Result #2
How much of the site has been visited by the Googlebot? To determine
that, you can use the following command in Google:
links: www.melandthepartyhats.com
The links show 14 pages on the band's site on Google's 2 pages of
results. You have lots of internal links -- but no links from
Nashville band sites; entertainment sites; groupies' sites or other
unaffiliated pages.
There admittedly may be other ways that you wish to be found, such as
in a search for:
"tie skirt" + Mel
Result #9
"Nashville bands" + Mel
9 results, no listing
Because of that last search, it's worth noting that while other search
engines may use meta tags, they are ignored by Google -- even though
you have all three of those words in your meta keywords statement. To
get greater visibility, you'll want those keywords in text and in
links on your web pages -- particularly the index or "home" page.
Your home page is very short on text and the result is that the Google
text displayed is basically coming up with coming performances.
In addition, the fact that the site was gone or down for 2001, 2002
may be penalizing you in the Google page ranking. You can see
archived versions at the Wayback Machine:
http://www.archive.org/web/web.php
---
SOME BACKGROUND
Now, how do we get the Party Hats (and Mel) visibility to match their
sartorial splendor? The basic page rank technology rewards sites for
being networked or linked to other resources. In other words, you
want your page to have links to it from other knowledgeable sites --
though you want to avoid link farms and such. Here is Google's guide
for webmasters:
Google Technology
://www.google.com/technology/index.html
Here are some details on what precise steps need be taken -- and what
needs be avoided in getting information in the Google database:
Google Information for Webmasters
://www.google.com/webmasters/
Make sure that you read the pages on search engine optimizers and the
guidelines, as Google has been known to ban pages that use tricks to
elevate their Pagerank:
Webmaster Guidelines
://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html
And Search Engine Watch is a good news resource on how Google and
other search engines work, with information on how (and HOW NOT) to
position yourself for the best visibility:
http://searchenginewatch.com/
---
SUBMISSIONS
You're already there on Google, so you don't need to add the URL, but
here's how you do it:
://www.google.com/addurl.html
Google also recommends an entry in the DMOZ Open Directory:
http://www.dmoz.org/
You should probably also consider submissions to the other major search engines:
Yahoo
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/suggest/
MSN
http://submitit.bcentral.com/msnsubmit.htm
AllTheWeb
http://addurl.alltheweb.com/add_url
I hope that this helps but if any aspect of this answer is unclear,
please request a clarification before rating the answer.
Party on Mel!
Omnivorous-GA |
