No ranking for main page of my site (Full Version)

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Polaris -> No ranking for main page of my site (1/1/2007 20:09:53)

Hello, dear webmasters!

3 or 4 monthes ago my site was good ranked at MSN and Yahoo. Then I've lost these positions, now my site has some good positions, but only due secondary pages. The main page of my site (index.shtml) has no more good positions. Could anybody explain me this situation? I can even tip the direct name of my site in the search field of MSN or Yahoo and get only secondary pages, not the index page. Is the main page banned by MSN and Yahoo? How can I detect it for sure? How can I avoid this ban?

Waiting for your answers or suggestions! Thank you in advance!

With best regards, Alex



Kitka -> RE: No ranking for main page of my site (1/1/2007 21:35:00)

Most likely your site is being penalised for hosting a spammy link exchange. [:'(]

And possibly because your index page has more space devoted to links than actual content.

I think you'd be far better off asking your questions in another forum which is populated by people in the same sort of dodgy business as you are. People here are into building legitimate content sites - not spammy porn, dating or marriage agency sites.



Mojo -> RE: No ranking for main page of my site (1/2/2007 2:12:44)

quote:

I think you'd be far better off asking your questions in another forum which is populated by people in the same sort of dodgy business as you are. People here are into building legitimate content sites - not spammy porn, dating or marriage agency sites


Condescending and rude....

If you don't know the answer it's best to just keep quiet. Not long ago OutFront was advertising dating site software. It's not a dodgy business.

What is a spammy site anyhow? The online dictionaries that I checked all had a version of the following:
1. To send unsolicited e-mail to.
2. To send (a message) indiscriminately to multiple mailing lists, individuals, or newsgroups.

There is no such thing as a spammy website. You may not like the site layout, but to use the word 'spam' to define a website is just wrong.

Polaris - Is the site you're talking about - woman-for-marriage-ukraine.com? I am able to pull it up in Yahoo and MSN. What's are you missing? Also, don't worry about not having the home page rank before the other pages. It's generally much better business to rank for 100's of secondary pages rather than just a single page.

You will find the dating industry is *very* competitive. To compete in the organic listings you will need some serious SEO. The major sites all have a huge headstart and the fight for the table scraps amongst the smaller sites is vicious. If I were to enter that market I would expect to spend thousands of dollars each month just buying links or sites. Even then, you may not get far.

Your choice of a domain name will often raise eyebrows. Multiple hyphen's in domains have been used with great success in the past by clever marketers to rank highly in the search engine results. It can still work to some degree, but the lifeblood of ranking high in competitive areas is back links. Many people will not want to link to your site because the domain name itself looks suspect.




Kitka -> RE: No ranking for main page of my site (1/2/2007 3:13:13)

quote:

Condescending and rude....


Posted by someone who has openly admitted in OutFront that he himself has been a spammer (and for all we know, may still be).

quote:

If you don't know the answer it's best to just keep quiet.


I'm pretty sure I do know the reason, and I stated as much in my first post.

quote:

What is a spammy site anyhow?


A spammy website is one that uses highly questionable means to promote itself.

Your definitions apply only to the word SPAM - not spammy.



Mojo -> RE: No ranking for main page of my site (1/2/2007 9:51:25)

Whatever... You were still rude and didn't even offer to help.

quote:

Your definitions apply only to the word SPAM - not spammy.


It is not my definition. It is THE definition of spam. Maybe you should spend time looking up the meaning of the word and less time on a witch hunt. You labeled OutFront with the same ignorant brush as you did Polaris (and me).

EDIT: I forgot to ask....

quote:

A spammy website is one that uses highly questionable means to promote itself.


You still didn't answer my question of what is a spammy website? You just gave a vague response on the order of "a spammy site is a spammy site". Can you do better than that?



womble -> RE: No ranking for main page of my site (1/2/2007 11:32:05)

I have to agree with Kitka that there's not much in the way of unique content. The three boxes of text - one at the top of the page, one just above the copyright statement, and one right at the foot of the page, below all the links, are all worded very similarly and basically say the same thing - which is probably considered by the search engines to be keyword stuffing.

There may not be an official definition of a 'spammy site', but we all know the feeling of landing on a site and finding it packed with lots of repeated phrases and links galore, and feeling that there's just something 'spammy' about it for want of a better word.

Bearing in mind the above comments about a lot of repeated content, a Google definition search of 'keyword stuffing' came up with this as one of the definitions:
quote:

also known as Spamming (after the Monty Python sketch). The practise of repeating words or phrases excessively in order to try to gain an advantage with Search Engines. Likely to be counter productive (most Search Engines penalise this practise heavily).
www.it-expert-witness.co.uk/glossary.htm


That, I think, is your definition Mojo.

I'd suggest Polaris that you re-read the responses you got to a very similarly worded question on another webmaster forum (almost a year ago) regarding why your main page is ranking lower than your other pages.



Mojo -> RE: No ranking for main page of my site (1/2/2007 11:46:18)

quote:

That, I think, is your definition Mojo.


No. That's Google's definition. They are a business that wants to change the meaning of a word.

Anyhow, Polaris mentioned a ban and Kitka mentioned a penalty. Based upon the limited information in this post I didn't see either.



Mike54 -> RE: No ranking for main page of my site (1/2/2007 12:08:42)

-> Characteristics of a "spammy website".<-



Mojo -> RE: No ranking for main page of my site (1/2/2007 12:23:27)

Mike - That is still based upon Google trying to redefine a word. From that link -

quote:

At the least, for Google search engine’s point of view, the following are some characteristics of a spammy websites;


A web site can't be defined as spammy as the definition is for email/newsgroups.

I can't help but think that if Microsoft was trying to redefine an industry there would be a lot of people going absolutely nuts. Google on the other hand, has legions of people getting high on their love juice - Adsense.



Mike54 -> RE: No ranking for main page of my site (1/2/2007 12:43:53)

quote:

Mike - That is still based upon Google trying to redefine a word.

Agreed [;)], you'd think that even Google would find it easier to create a new word than try to reuse an old one, heck the president does it all the time....[8D]



TonyT -> RE: No ranking for main page of my site (1/3/2007 12:36:25)

The search engines are so much smarter than they were even a year ago. SEO is dead. Chasing after the ever-changing algorithm is a total waste of your time. SE's are looking for valuable content and a lot of it. If you provide them with keyword-rich, solid content that will attract visitors and give them the solutions to their questions and problems (aside from entertainment purposes, that is why people search the web, ultimately), they'll love your site.

SE's are known to drop pages from your sites every so often, but after they send their spiders out again, they'll pick you up again.

Keep your focus on content, content, content and remember that slow and steady wins the race. [;)]



Mojo -> RE: No ranking for main page of my site (1/3/2007 14:14:14)

quote:

SEO is dead.


LMAO!!

Certainly the search engines have raised the bar and the duffers can no longer compete, but for those people who have always pressed the envelope it is business as usual. If you are in a competitive industry and your only SEO efforts are excellent content you will not win. Even slow and steady. Why? In competitive industries there are usually many sites with excellent content that also optimize their sites for the search engines. Good content is just one part of SEO.

Another reason that content can't be the deciding factor is that it is VERY easy to build excellent content. I have a published writer with an MA from Northwestern who writes articles for my clients. He charges me roughly $0.07 per word or $300 per 2000 word article. He can write a couple of high quality articles per day. So, finding quality content is easy - it's nothing. Knowing how make that content generate income is the trick.



Reflect -> RE: No ranking for main page of my site (1/3/2007 14:23:02)

TonyT,

I think you are right....based on the genre.

I agree whole heartedly that content is a MAJOR piece. However for highly competetive keywords/keyword phrases (read multiple million returns in the SERPs) I think there is more than content needed.

Inbound links are a mightly big help. Not just free for all links but genre targeted links.

Also I know Yahoo! still uses meta=description (stated in a Yahoo! lecture given by Yahoo! in May 2006.), this is SEO in my mind.

Also making header tags (H1/H2/etc) relevant to the content on the page is SEO.

Also making the title element relevant to the page content is SEO also.

These are just a few things that, IMHO, make a difference in a competitive genre (again millions of returns).

I agree also with slow and steady. If the SEs see a HUGE jump with IBL (In bound links) it will have a negative effect.

Take care,

Brian




TonyT -> RE: No ranking for main page of my site (1/3/2007 14:39:47)

Reflect, first thanks for the respect for what I had to say; appreciate it.

As long as someone does their research and applies them self to a niche with high demand and low supply, chances are very good that they are going to succeed. I totally agree that the typical META tags should be applied correctly. Aside from that, like I said, chasing the ever changing SE algorithms will only get you frustrated. No one, except maybe 2-3 people on the inside of Google, knows what makes it tick....and they aren't talking. I'm sure that their non-disclosures make Cokes look like swish cheese! hehe.

Mojo: Laugh all you want. Search Engines Gurus are a huge waste of time and money. Anyone can do it, if they focus on what is important and true. My site has gone through the roof within 8 short months, traffic-wise and money-wise (I fully expected it to at least take a year. Needless to say, I was pleasantly surprised). Guess what it's based on? A high demand, low supply niche that is filled to the rim with content. I could care less about the latest, by the minute changes to the SE's. I don't chase after the wind. I have better things to do.

I guess I can laugh, too.....all the way to the bank. [:D]



Mojo -> RE: No ranking for main page of my site (1/3/2007 14:43:13)

quote:

I guess I can laugh, too.....all the way to the bank


That's great. I hope you never find yourself going up against serious competition.



Mango Himself -> RE: No ranking for main page of my site (1/3/2007 16:23:04)

quote:

SEO is dead.


That will come as a surprise to two MIT PhDs I know who spend about 10 hours a day researching SEO.

Like Mojo said, I can tell the kind of competitors you're up against!

Man, don't take this the wrong way, I am not attacking your beliefs in any way, but do you realize the statement you made? If you are serious about this business, delete your comment, ask for an apology, go to sleep, wake up, study about 10 years and then return to the forum LOL!!!!

Take it with a grain of salt!If it's any consolation, what you said ranks high in my wild-unfounded-overtly exagerated-totally fact missing-unbelievably incorrect statements of the year. And we're only in January. I trust you will come up with something even better by March.



TonyT -> RE: No ranking for main page of my site (1/3/2007 16:32:10)

I must have missed the day that they allowed such disrespect in these forums. That is my opinion based on my findings and experience and I should have the right to voice them without having snide little barbs thrown my way.

I've been here for a good, long time and have never experienced such immaturity here when it comes to dealing with other people.


It's pretty sad, actually. [:(]

Take a look. I'm not the only one: http://www.smart-it-consulting.com/article.htm?node=137


The good side of it all is that I have good enough boundaries that I don't feel I need to take it, nor deserve it.



Mango Himself -> RE: No ranking for main page of my site (1/3/2007 16:47:41)

quote:

disrespect


None implied! No disrespect whatsoever. remember Goodfellas? "you're a funny guy!" It's just that your comment is absolutely hilarious! Honestly! Ask around!

Please tell me it was all a joke and you're just carrying it further, please! I am still laughing! No more, please, no more!

"You're a funny guy" (put a little Joe Pesci accent to it)




Mango Himself -> RE: No ranking for main page of my site (1/3/2007 16:51:08)

and, in reference to the link to the article you posted, allow me to quote the last line by Liane (the author)

"By the way, a friend of mine stopped over and I’ have to admit to having had more than a “few” drinks ... so take all of the above for what its worth and with a large pinch of salt! I’ve never been known for my drinking stamina!"

Can you take that seriously? "You're a funny guy"



Mojo -> RE: No ranking for main page of my site (1/3/2007 17:11:51)

TonyT - I am a bit surprised at the offense you have taken.

If you have the courage to post that SEO is dead - in the SEO forum - then you should have the humility to accept the viewpoints of others. The title of Liane's article that you linked to is "SEO is dead - Long live SEO!"
You should be careful in basing opinions that you can't personally back up with the opinions of others that are obviously a bit tongue-in-cheek. Not to mention she didn't back up her article with any evidence. The evidence that SEO is alive and well is easily shown by an unlimited number of search queries.



womble -> RE: No ranking for main page of my site (1/3/2007 19:03:07)


quote:

ORIGINAL: TonyT

I must have missed the day that they allowed such disrespect in these forums. That is my opinion based on my findings and experience and I should have the right to voice them without having snide little barbs thrown my way.

Don't take it personally Tony - this sort of thing does tend to happen when some people are around.

As for the whole content v SEO argument (yawn! which we've had many times), I agree with Tony. Yes, there's an important place for SEO, but without good content, you're dead. From personal experience, I have 3 sites, which with no or very little SEO done on them are doing pretty well in the SEs. Yes, they do have a few, but not loads, of decent backlinks, but nothing really's been done on two of them apart from the META tags, heading tags and title. One's ranked 7th in Google for the two main keywords. The other two are ranked 1st and 2nd for their main two keywords which surprised me when I just checked tonight. I knew one of them was doing okay - the other one's been up around 3 months and hasn't had anything done to it SEO wise because I've not had time yet. They may not be in the mega-bucks categories, but in their field, the keywords are pretty competitive. All three are on totally different subjects - the only similarity they share is that they all have a lot of decent content that changes on a regular basis.

It works for Tony and it works for me. We're obviously doing something right.





Mojo -> RE: No ranking for main page of my site (1/3/2007 22:09:23)

quote:

this sort of thing does tend to happen when some people are around.


Are you taking a free shot at me or Mango?

Anecdotal evidence of just a couple sites and a few keywords hardly shows that SEO is dead. As I said above - SEO is changing, but it is not only healthy industry it is also a fast growing industry. I read recently where the majority of small businesses in the U.S. (which employ the majority of people) don't have a functioning web site. There is a lot of work out there.

quote:

Search Engines Gurus are a huge waste of time and money. Anyone can do it, if they focus on what is important and true.


What is important and true? Excellent original content? I already pointed out how incredibly easy it is to generate high quality unique content. When everyone has superb content, how do you think the search engines are going to identify the top 10?




BobbyDouglas -> RE: No ranking for main page of my site (1/4/2007 0:21:02)

quote:

Search Engines Gurus are a huge waste of time and money.

- Have anything to back this up, other than your single experience? Keep in mind that a lot of these SEO/SEM articles you read, are from gurus who take the time to learn everything. Most likely, the stuff you have learned has been from the work of SEO gurus, who decided to take the time to write up a nice article for those who don't know much.

I'm sure there are a ton of websites that do not need someone who understands and knows SEO, but there are always going to be a lot more that do need it. Common sense goes a long way with SEO, but it takes someone who really understands it to get the best results possible.



Donkey -> RE: No ranking for main page of my site (1/4/2007 7:02:37)

I understand where Tony's coming from on this issue, although I think now SEO specialists are a necessary evil, and it's now too late to put the Genie back in the bottle.

I think it has all gone to far and now the search engines are seen more as a way of site owners making money, than as a device for surfers to find information.

As a someone who uses Search Engines I can't see any valid reason for ranking sites on any other criteria than the relevancy of their content to my search phrase. Back links etc don't help me at all.

Directory sites and link farms are another PITA. Directories which are purely list of links to (mainly) other directories are a huge problem for most of us and I don't see a valid reason for giving them any ranking at all, if the search engine was working properly just using content to rank sites, then these parasites could not exist. Let's face it most of them are put up to make a quick buck from advertising and not to offer any sort of service worth a sh1t to the consumer.

Morally it is a great shame that the SEO industry has grown so big because it's raison d’ętre is to trick search engines into ranking sites above a level at which their content alone would place them. That cannot be right. To me it is just an "acceptable" form of fraud.



Mojo -> RE: No ranking for main page of my site (1/4/2007 10:33:33)

quote:

I can't see any valid reason for ranking sites on any other criteria than the relevancy of their content to my search phrase.


You don't understand SEO. The entire point of SEO is to rank sites based upon their relevancy to the search terms. In the old days it was easy to rank a site for unrelated terms. Today, the search engines are much better at catching the bait-and-switch tactics. Having long term profitability has everything to do with ROI. Driving traffic for 'wooden toy blocks' to a site on women's lingerie is a waste of money. The ROI on something like that will be very low and the SE's will eventually discover the loophole and close it. I don't know any professional SEM/SEO that drives unrelated traffic to client sites.

Google could cut out 95% of all the junk sites with one simple solution - Develope quality control for Adsense. Currently Google has zero quality standards for Adsense. 99% of the junk sites are MFA sites. I wonder why Google doesn't do anything about this well known problem?

quote:

Morally it is a great shame...To me it is just an "acceptable" form of fraud.


I understand you feel comfortable up on your high horse, but your strong feelings are misdirected. Do you know that Google is a for-profit business? They are not a charity. In fact, they frequently make algo changes that wipe out tons of mom and pop sites. There are many industries that YOU would never have a chance to compete in because of the slant that Google has towards large established businesses. Well, I guess you could compete, but you would have to hire an SEM.



womble -> RE: No ranking for main page of my site (1/4/2007 10:52:25)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Mojo
they frequently make algo changes that wipe out tons of mom and pop sites. There are many industries that YOU would never have a chance to compete in because of the slant that Google has towards large established businesses. Well, I guess you could compete, but you would have to hire an SEM.

I don't know about Donkey, but I'd hardly call being the UK arm of a company with branches across the world a "mom and pop" business.



Mojo -> RE: No ranking for main page of my site (1/4/2007 11:01:49)

What does that have to do with a lack of SEO/SEM knowledge?



Reflect -> RE: No ranking for main page of my site (1/4/2007 11:37:14)

quote:

The good side of it all is that I have good enough boundaries that I don't feel I need to take it, nor deserve it.


TonyT...

An aside...

I went to a forum around one year ago. It is a MAJOR forum on SEO. Now I do not claim to be an SEM guru (far from it). However, like you, I have opinions on what I have seen in my genre and on the keywords and long tail phrases I chase. Somone posted losing ranking complety. His scenario was in the footer of three sites he put links to the other two sites sitewide. I posted asking if he hosted all sites on the same host. He answered yes. I had this happen also. I made no changes other than what he did, no algo changes hit in the two months that I started losing traffic. I researched and determined Google downgraded me due to intersite linking on the same class C IP block. I also believe since, as a secondary reson, my who is data was public. So I posted back what I thought it was and why (a long post). Needless to say I got flamed as (Even by the moderators).....

I only had five sights to base this conclusion on. I was told to form this opinion I need 50 plus sites.

You know what...I never went back.

Everyone is entitled to an opinion...right or wrong. You present your data to back up a claim and go from there.

Is it right in every genre...,.no. however it was expierenced.

If you get tired of the trips to the bank I can humbly offer myself for courier services [:D].

SEO is not dead, it just hides well in some genres [;)].

Sorry to ramble,

Brian



Donkey -> RE: No ranking for main page of my site (1/4/2007 11:58:28)

quote:

I understand you feel comfortable up on your high horse, but your strong feelings are misdirected. Do you know that Google is a for-profit business? They are not a charity.

You clearly don't understand the point I am making.

(You can be as patronising as you like, I take no offense, at least on my high horse I'm not wading through the effluent.)

Google is only profitable because people use it's services. If they continue to allow directory sites and list sites to flourish they will eventually lose the goodwill of the users and their profitability will fall.


quote:

The entire point of SEO is to rank sites based upon their relevancy to the search terms.

No one has yet explained how backlinks are a measure of a site's relevance. Surely backlinks if you have them should reward you with more traffic anyway just because people use them?



Mojo -> RE: No ranking for main page of my site (1/4/2007 12:09:21)

quote:

No one has yet explained how backlinks are a measure of a site's relevance.


Google give a basic explanation here: http://www.google.com/technology/




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