Hi Jamiealan ~
We are often asked this question ... or questions similar to it ... by
people who want to rank higher in search engine results placements
(SERPs), but who seem to be getting nowhere on Google.
After a little investigation, we occasionally find they have engaged
in practices which Google specifically warns against, such as:
* Participating in link schemes designed to increase their
site's ranking or PageRank by linking to web spammers or
"bad neighborhoods" which Google may have banned.
* Create multiple pages or domains with substantially
duplicate content.
* Registering with or linking from sites which are themselves
engaging in deceptive practices, such as domains which are
purposely misspelled in order to attract searchers who may
mistype the url in the locator bar of their browsers.
While those practices may actually work for awhile in achieving better
SERPs, eventually they are discovered and can result in being
subsequently banned from Google for engaging in these or other
"deceptive or manipulative behavior". We are then asked what they can
do to be re-instated in Google's index.
I specifically mentioned those three instances that can result in
being penalized, because after investigation, I have found incidents
of all three in relation to www.toronto-condominium-homes.com.
For instance:
1. Several links from sources which Google considers "linking schemes"
(some aren't even listed, others have a greyed out PageRank).
2. www.toronto-condominium-homes.com is identical to
www.alanrealestate.com. If I found it, you know that eventually Google
will, too.
3. Link farms with deliberate misspellings, (all of which have been
banned from Google and are no longer listed), such as
Seach-Engine.com - PR grey -
- www.seach-engine.com/search/toronto-real-estate-agent.html
Serch-Engines.com - PR grey -
- www.serch-engines.com/search/toronto-real-estate-agent.html
Serch-Engins.com - PR grey -
- www.serch-engins.com/search/toronto-real-estate-agent.html
Search-Engin.net - PR grey -
- www.search-engin.net/search/toronto-real-estate-agent.html
The above practices have certainly not helped you in any way, and one
can be reasonably certain that it will eventually be harmful, so it
would behoove you to do something about the identical websites and to
get UNlisted from those sites which are considered link farms.
While it may be true that you don't have control over the links on
another's site, the fact that you *are* there and have been there is
taking a needless risk.
===========================
Answering Your Questions
===========================
I'll take the questions a bit out of Order to address the "easiest"
first.
Google's Link: Tool
===================
You asked, "When I look for links tied to my website by entering
link:www-toronto-condominium-homes.com I get no links found. How do I
get google to recognise my links?"
If you use the Google's Link: Tool - link:
www.toronto-condominium-homes.com (notice the period after www, not a
hyphen), Google returns 11 links:
- ://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=link%3A+www.toronto-condominium-homes.com
Searching for Your Domain
=========================
Interesting results occurred performing a search on the domain:
www.toronto-condominium-homes.com
- ://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=www.toronto-condominium-homes.com+
"Toronto Real Estate - Toronto Condominiums,
Houses & Real Estate ... home. ...
Description: Salesperson serving all of Toronto and offering
listings for homes and condominiums. Includes personal...
Category: Regional > North America > ... > Residential > Agents
and further:
"Google can show you the following information for this URL:
Show Google's cache of www.toronto-condominium-homes.com
Find web pages that are similar to
www.toronto-condominium-homes.com
Find web pages that link to www.toronto-condominium-homes.com
Find web pages that contain the term
"www.toronto-condominium-homes.com"
Clicking on the "web pages that link to ..." produced 0 results;
- ://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=link:vx2S-V4w560J:www.toronto-condominium-homes.com/
whereas clicking on "web pages that contain the term ..." produced 75
results:
- ://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=%22%2Bwww.toronto-condominium-homes.%2Bcom%22
The difference is that the "links" are other pages which Google
determines are relevant, are listed in its index and have a PageRank,
usually of PR4 or above. Those pages which "contain the term" may also
be in the form of links, but the pages there are either not listed in
Google's index, have a lower PageRank, or have been penalized and are
still listed as containing some reference to your site.
A Good Look at Your Sites
And Listings In Other Search Engines
====================================
For the major search engines and directories, the Open Project
Directory (DMOZ.org), Google, Yahoo!, Alta Vista, MSN, HotBot, etc.,
here are listings and links that I found:
Links from Google, searching for either
www.toronto-condominium-homes.com or "Alan Read-Chua"
* Listings Ontario - PR grey -
- http://listingsca.com/Ontario/Toronto-Region/York-County/Business/Real_Estate/index.asp
* Relocate Canada - PR3 -
- http://relocatecanada.com/toronto/real.html
* Toronto Real Estate Listings - PR grey -
- http://expoose.net/toronto-real-estate-listings.htm
* Canada Real Estate Directory - PR grey -
- http://canadarealestatedirectory.com/topsites/?from=0&cid=0
* Seach-Engine.com (deliberate misspelling) - PR grey -
- www.seach-engine.com/search/toronto-real-estate-agent.html
* Serch-Engines.com (deliberate misspelling) - PR grey -
- www.serch-engines.com/search/toronto-real-estate-agent.html
* Serch-Engins.com (deliberate misspelling) - PR grey -
- www.serch-engins.com/search/toronto-real-estate-agent.html
* Search-Engin.net (deliberate misspelling) - PR grey -
- www.search-engin.net/search/toronto-real-estate-agent.html
* Toronto Real Estate Agent - PR grey -
- http://www.mortgages-approved.us/dir/toronto_real_estate_agent/index.shtml
From AlltheWeb.com:
===================
* Cabbagetown Toronto - PR4 -
- http://cabbagetowntoronto.com/
* Relocate Canada - PR3 -
- http://relocatecanada.com/toronto/real.html
* Education Canada - Real Estate Agents (links) - PR0 -
- http://dirs.educationcanada.com/cat/272546/
From dmoz.org
=============
For www.toronto-condominium-homes.com - no listing
For Alan Read-Chua -
Regional: North America: Canada: Ontario: Localities: T: Toronto:
Business and Economy: Real Estate: Residential: Agents
Alta Vista -
10 links to www.toronto-condominium-homes.com
================================================
* Danforth Toronto Community Website - PR4 - advert
- http://www.danforthtoronto.com/
* Bloor West Village Community Website - PR4 - advert
- http://www.bloorwestvillage.com/
* Leaside, Rosedale, and the other communities ... all with identical
front page info.
* SeekOn - PR0 -
- http://www.seekon.com/L/CAN/ON/Toronto/Real_Estate.html
HotBot - 2 listings
===================
Yahoo - listed with 3 links
===========================
MSN - 2 listings (no links)
===========================
You stated, "I have a ton of high ranking websites for the search
words "Toronto
Real Estate" linking to my site, but no results." I never found a
great many external links to your site, and only a few had a PageRank
of 4. Those pages with a greyed out PR have no doubt been identified
as being irrelevant at best, or a "linking scheme" at worst, and links
from those sites can do more harm to you than good.
The low PageRank or 0 PageRank is the reason you aren't seeing links
in your return.
===================================
Building a Google-Friendly Website
===================================
To address your last question, "Any suggestions for getting higher
search results for the search term "toronto real estate"?", let's
start with Google's suggestions, recommendations and Guidelines.
Google is first and foremost a search engine. In my opinion, Google is
the BEST search engine around, and I'm not alone in that opinion. The
reason Google is considered the best is that it delivers RELEVANT
information to a search inquiry. The term "relevant" is extremely
important. If Google returns garbage results, it wouldn't be so
popular.
Google's responsibility is to the searcher, not to webmasters or
website owners, so if you want to ensure YOUR business will be
included in those results, you have to supply RELEVANT information on
your website. It's that simple.
Google explains its technology in "Page Rank Information"
- ://www.google.com/webmasters/4.html
and its "Why Use Google" page:
"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
So linking to your site is important; however, any old link won't do.
The links to your site must be relevant. But "relevant" can be as easy
as someone recommending your business within a paragraph which
contains a link to your site.
But what's on your site matters, too. Google's recommendations are
contained on its Webmaster Information pages:
"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.
* 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)."
- ://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html
Google's Quality Guidelines - Basic principles:
"* Make pages for users, not for search engines. Don't deceive
your users, or present different content to search engines
than you display to users.
* Avoid tricks intended to improve search engine rankings...
* 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
Applying the recommendations to your site:
==========================================
Besides the items mentioned above (the duplicate site,
alanrealestate.com) and the links from which you should seriously
consider extricating yourself, consider what your site offers, and
then consider changes to enhance your offering.
Start from your desire to move place higher in SERPs for the term
"Toronto real estate". A search on Google returns about 806,000 pages
with that term. That is one heck of a lot of competition! So how do
you go about achieving your goal?
=================================
The Basics - HTML
=================================
Shari Thurow, one of the leading authorities in web design and search
engine optimization (and author of the book "Search Engine
Visibility"), recently made the following observation with regard to
the basics of HTML:
"Clean HTML is absolutely imperative for search engine
indexing. Browsers are extremely forgiving when it comes
to displaying pages with "unclean" HTML (unclosed tags,
no quotation marks, etc.). Search engine spiders are
not so forgiving. Even something as simple as a missing
quotation mark on the <.a href="page.html"> can cause a
spider to not index text or a link." (See: Link Exchange
Digest, July 3, 2003, "Clean HTML")
- http://list.audettemedia.com/SCRIPTS/WA.EXE?A2=ind0307&L=led&D=1&T=0&H=1&O=D&F=&S=&P=282
She explained how errors in HTML can affect your ability to be
indexed, and ultimately, ranked.
====================
Getting Around
====================
In an interview with Craig Fifield of SubmitIt.com, Shari went on to
explain the importance of good design:
"The most important text on your pages is the text in your title tags,
and the visible body text. Text that is at the top of a page, in the
first screen your target audience views is the most important text on
that page. Text that is not visible, such as Meta tag text and
alternative text, is not as important as many people think."
When it comes to web copywriting, Thurow advises learning to write
copy using the words that your target audience will type into search
queries. "You don't even have to spend any money to do quality
keyword research," she said. "You can perform keyword research on the
search engines, look at your web site statistics, and use your site
search engine." (To read the entire article)
- http://www.highrankings.com/issue029.htm#ses
While the articles you have on your site, "Toronto Real Estate Board's
September 2003 Release Of Market Watch", "Toronto Real Estate Economic
Consultant Will Dunning's Analysis Of The Housing Market", and "You
Can Now Purchase Toronto Real Estate Properties Over $300,000 With 5%
Down!" are informative, is this why your visitors are coming to your
page?
Or are they looking for housing to buy, or sellers looking for an
agent with whom to list? What, exactly, are you trying to convey to
your visitor, and which visitor are you trying to reach?
You have excellent information on your site available for either
buyers or sellers, but much of it can't be found because of the heavy
use of javascript. There is NO javascript that can't be totally messed
up by search engine crawlers, present a text menu on the site so
visitors can find those pages and crawlers can find and index the
site.
Your Marketing Plan has a lot of information which would be useful for
a seller, and possible sellers may be able to see it, provided they
have all the bells and whistles they need enabled on those browsers.
Run that section through a text browser, though, and you'll find that
there is nothing there to be read, and nothing for a search engine
crawler to index. If you want this information to be indexed, make it
easy for them TO index it.
Drop the bells and whistles and stick to cleaner HTML, both your
visitors and search engines will be kinder to you in the long run.
One suggestion I would make on the homes you have listed: List all the
unsold available homes first. Buyers want to see those first, not
interspersed with other homes they can't purchase because someone beat
them to it!
Make it easy to find those pages with the listings, too. That
revolving band of photos is very nice, except not all visitors can see
those, give them ~ and ultimately, search engine crawlers ~ something
to find, and ultimately to click on.
=================================
Establishing Good Links
=================================
As stated, Google's PageRank is based on the number of pages which
link to your site.
"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." (SEE Google's
" How Do I Get My Site Listed on Google? - 2. Submitting Your site")
- ://www.google.com/webmasters/1.html#A1
There are many practical ways of establishing links which are
beneficial to inclusion 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.
======================
Content Is Still King
======================
The importance of relevant content cannot be over emphasized, Every
search engine expert, from Danny Sullivan, Detlev Johnson, Jill
Whalen, Shari Thurow, etc., to those who merely speculate on what
seems to be working, agree that if you create pages with rich text
content, valuable to your visitors, you can obtain good SERPs and stay
in good position.
Without good content, you may temporarily show up in a good ranking,
but you won't stay there, because the search engines change their
algorithms almost daily, and trying to reverse engineer or
second-guess what works WITHOUT relevant content is like shooting at a
moving target.
========================
What's Important -
Really ??
========================
Start with being familiar with Google's suggestions and
recommendations. If they weren't important, they'd not be there.
- Getting Listed
://www.google.com/webmasters/1.html
- Why you may not be listed
://www.google.com/webmasters/2.html
- Page Rank Information (SERPs)
://www.google.com/webmasters/4.html
- Google's PageRank & Technology
://www.google.com/technology/index.html
- Why Google is so good (Google's responsibility to searchers)
://www.google.com/technology/whyuse.html
- Webmaster Guidelines
://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html
- Facts & Fiction (what's rumor, what's not)
://www.google.com/webmasters/facts.html
- SEOs - who's good, who should be ignored at all costs
://www.google.com/webmasters/seo.html
- Frequently Asked Questions
://www.google.com/webmasters/faq.html
In addition to the above by Google, there are several good resources
to help you stay on top of the best practices:
* Danny Sullivan's Search Engine Watch
- http://www.searchenginewatch.com
* Webmaster World (pay attention to any posting by GoogleGuy,
it's the closest to any "official" notifications and explanations
you may get)
- http://www.webmasterworld.com
* Jill Whalen's High Rankings Advisor
- http://www.highrankings.com/seo-writing.htm?c1=email&source=ldsignup
And there are others with good information, but these are considered
among the best.
Search terms used:
Searches conducted and the terms used are discussed above. In
addition, I relied on Bookmarks and knowledge of the subject for
resources and information presented in this answer.
Good luck with your search engine placement!
Best regards,
Serenata
Google Answers Researcher |
