gnarly parts Posted February 5, 2004 Share Posted February 5, 2004 Does anyone notice there site dropping on Google. I have tonnes of my keywords listed on page 1-2 and now there not even in the top 10 pages. Only thing different is I lowered my cost at the Adwords and uploaded my entire catolog in Froogle. If I knew this was going to happen I wouldn't have uploaded to Froogle. I know Google change a few things lately with the search engine war about to happen but what gives? Dave Always looking for a way to improve my sites. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
♥kymation Posted February 5, 2004 Share Posted February 5, 2004 I've also noticed a drop in my Google listings, and I haven't uploaded to Froogle yet. It looks like a change in Google's ranking system went in around the end of January. Many merchant sites dropped in ranking, but some seem to still do well. My opinion, for what it is worth, is that Google is trying to push all of the shopping sites onto Froogle by lowering our rankings on the main site. Although this makes some sense, they could have other motives here. If anybody has any information (or just guesses) on this I'd love to hear it. Regards Jim See my profile for a list of my addons and ways to get support. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted February 5, 2004 Share Posted February 5, 2004 Google's SERPs have been changing almost daily the second half of January. There's no rhyme or reason to most of it at all. One day I'll be #2 for a term, the next #3, the next #30, then back to #2 the next day. Just hope they finish tweaking the algorithm soon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted April 29, 2004 Share Posted April 29, 2004 Can anyone give tips on getting listed, how/where to add meta tags, etc.??? I've also heard a lot of feedback about Google changing their Search rankings and AdWord rankings recently. Anyone have ideas or experience with getting back to the top? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jack_mcs Posted April 29, 2004 Share Posted April 29, 2004 Can anyone give tips on getting listed, how/where to add meta tags, etc.??? I've also heard a lot of feedback about Google changing their Search rankings and AdWord rankings recently. Anyone have ideas or experience with getting back to the top? Unless you are preventing google from seeing your site on purpose (via a robots.txt file for example), you will get listed eventually. Getting listed in the top ten is a whole different matter though (search the forums for this topic - there have been an inordinate amount of posts on it lately it seems). As far as the meta tags, you should add the Header Tags Controller contribution and then edit it so that each of your pages has unique tags and titles. Jack Support Links: For Hire: Contact me for anything you need help with for your shop: upgrading, hosting, repairs, code written, etc. All of My Addons Get the latest versions of my addons Recommended SEO Addons Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
burt Posted April 29, 2004 Share Posted April 29, 2004 Forget Meta Keywords and Description. Concentrate on <title> and getting good backlinks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SamyT Posted April 29, 2004 Share Posted April 29, 2004 Is there a way (for dummies) just to make it so the product name appears as the page title? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jack_mcs Posted April 29, 2004 Share Posted April 29, 2004 Forget Meta Keywords and Description. Concentrate on <title> and getting good backlinks. I'm curious why you would advise this Burt? You probably know better than me that those two meta tags carry a lot of weight with the SE's. But even if they didn't, in order to easily change the title for each page, HTC is really the only way to go. And since changing the tags along with the title takes only a few moments, I cannot see the reason why one would not do it? Jack Support Links: For Hire: Contact me for anything you need help with for your shop: upgrading, hosting, repairs, code written, etc. All of My Addons Get the latest versions of my addons Recommended SEO Addons Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jack_mcs Posted April 29, 2004 Share Posted April 29, 2004 Is there a way (for dummies) just to make it so the product name appears as the page title? Install the Header Tags Controller contribution. It does it for you. Jack Support Links: For Hire: Contact me for anything you need help with for your shop: upgrading, hosting, repairs, code written, etc. All of My Addons Get the latest versions of my addons Recommended SEO Addons Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stevel Posted April 29, 2004 Share Posted April 29, 2004 The current wisdom I have seen is that meta tags have been so abused that the SEs pretty much ignore them nowadays. Steve Contributions: Country-State Selector Login Page a la Amazon Protection of Configuration Updated spiders.txt Embed Links with SID in Description Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vasttech Posted April 29, 2004 Share Posted April 29, 2004 Google openly admits to ignoring meta tags. They base their rankings on several things. 1. Links from outside sites to yours. 2. Keywords in title and headers and alt tags. However, they will punish you for filling all the alt tags with keywords. 3. Keywords on page (but do not abuse this as they will also punish you for over doing it here also.) osCommerce Knowledge Base osCommerce Documentation Contributions Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
burt Posted April 29, 2004 Share Posted April 29, 2004 Forget Meta Keywords and Description.? Concentrate on <title> and getting good backlinks. I'm curious why you would advise this Burt? You probably know better than me that those two meta tags carry a lot of weight with the SE's. But even if they didn't, in order to easily change the title for each page, HTC is really the only way to go. And since changing the tags along with the title takes only a few moments, I cannot see the reason why one would not do it? Jack HTC is an utter waste of a shop owners time and effort. If you are intent on using Meta Keywords and Meta Description then create them dynamically from the product name and description. I am of the opinion that any Modification to a Store should create *less* work for the Store Owner, not more! With regards to " those two meta tags carry a lot of weight with the SE's " - that's about the furthest from the truth that you can get. Not one of the major SE's pay any relevance to Meta Data (<title> excluded). I have not used Meta Tags on any sites for at least the last 4 years (unless the client specifically asks for them). Meta Tags == Biggest myth and waste of time out there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jack_mcs Posted April 29, 2004 Share Posted April 29, 2004 HTC is an utter waste of a shop owners time and effort. If you are intent on using Meta Keywords and Meta Description then create them dynamically from the product name and description. I am of the opinion that any Modification to a Store should create *less* work for the Store Owner, not more! With regards to " those two meta tags carry a lot of weight with the SE's " - that's about the furthest from the truth that you can get. Not one of the major SE's pay any relevance to Meta Data (<title> excluded). I have not used Meta Tags on any sites for at least the last 4 years (unless the client specifically asks for them). Meta Tags == Biggest myth and waste of time out there. I agree that a modification should not waste your time. Maybe I do not understand how to properly make changes, but the way I understand it is that in order to change the title for each page, you need to change the code for each of those pages. Unless you have the abilitiy to do that from within one file (as in HTC) then you are going to have to open a lot of files to make any modifications. That would be a much bigger waste of time IMO. I agree about the meta tags. I didn't mean to say they were so important but that they are still used and important in relation to the overall site design. Not all SE's , even google, disregard them from what I understand although they do not use them as they used to. Still, in the case of google at least, the decription tag is used when displaying a URL in its search results. Whether this helps with the SE's is debatable, but a nice descriptive tag can make a big difference when a person is reading it. It amounts to additional advertising. I think too you may need to differentiate between someone of your ability and many users of OSC. While it may be a simple matter for you to create meta tags dynamically, this is beyond the grasp of many OSC users. This applies as well to the title tag. I, for one, struggled for many hours coming to grips with OSC and still have a lot to learn. If someone would have advised me to create dynamic titles myself instead of letting HTC do it, I would have been even more lost. In this case, it is the easier way to go for the same result I think. Many times the solutions to such problems turns out to be simple, but when you have no idea what is going and no one is answering your questions, it can be quite frustrating. That's why I recommend HTC. It does a fair job with very little knowledge of OSC required. Like you said - "any Modification to a Store should create *less* work for the Store Owner." Jack Jack Support Links: For Hire: Contact me for anything you need help with for your shop: upgrading, hosting, repairs, code written, etc. All of My Addons Get the latest versions of my addons Recommended SEO Addons Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
burt Posted April 29, 2004 Share Posted April 29, 2004 This: http://www.oscommerce.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=28168 has been on the Forum for about the last 18 months. Simple code addition that should take no more than 30 seconds to implement. One heckuva lot easier than any other method... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gnarly parts Posted April 30, 2004 Author Share Posted April 30, 2004 I have all the mod done to my site. I change content on the front page every two weeks. I add new pages every week. I am adding content all the time, hoping to get my PR back. I use to PR5 on Google and now I PR2.. was a PR0 at one time. I'm not banned.. I have no idea why I am so far down on the list now. I don't have many back links but I never did. I do well on Yahoo and MSN for the keywords I want. Go figure? Dave Always looking for a way to improve my sites. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sosidge Posted April 30, 2004 Share Posted April 30, 2004 There is another contribution called "Really Easy HTML Title" that does similar to what burt mentioned above - it creates a dynamic title based on the name of your product. It's working well on my site, and a lot less hassle than "meta"-ing EVERY product you have as you list it. I'm not going to get into the Google debate - it seems to be a full time job for some people, I'd rather run my business - but it does seem that content is king, not meta. - osCommerce is fun! - Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
seanpaul Posted April 30, 2004 Share Posted April 30, 2004 With regards to " those two meta tags carry a lot of weight with the SE's " - that's about the furthest from the truth that you can get. Not one of the major SE's pay any relevance to Meta Data (<title> excluded). How is it that my meta descriptions are picked up by Google and Yahoo (whom I think still use Google in the UK) resulting in top ten rankings on many occasions? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jack_mcs Posted April 30, 2004 Share Posted April 30, 2004 This: http://www.oscommerce.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=28168 has been on the Forum for about the last 18 months. Simple code addition that should take no more than 30 seconds to implement. One heckuva lot easier than any other method... I guess it a matter of preference then. What you are doing is not that much different than what HTC is doing. In addition, you would still have to edit the 30-40 files in catalog so that they have their own title tags. A little more than 30 seconds I think. And if you do it that way, what happens when you decide to make a change to the title? Another 30-40 files to edit versus the one in HTC. Can't see the advantage myself. Jack Support Links: For Hire: Contact me for anything you need help with for your shop: upgrading, hosting, repairs, code written, etc. All of My Addons Get the latest versions of my addons Recommended SEO Addons Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
burt Posted May 1, 2004 Share Posted May 1, 2004 How is it that my meta descriptions are picked up by Google and Yahoo (whom I think still use Google in the UK) resulting in top ten rankings on many occasions? Can you show where your Metas are being picked up on a search? It would be interesting to see. Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
burt Posted May 1, 2004 Share Posted May 1, 2004 What you are doing is not that much different than what HTC is doing. In addition, you would still have to edit the 30-40 files in catalog so that they have their own title tags. You add that to your FILENAME_PRODUCT_INFO file only. And then make up some for FILENAME_DEFAULT if you feel a need to use them. What would be the point of getting pages other than FILENAME_DEFAULT and FILENAME_PRODUCT_INFO into a Search Engine? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gnarly parts Posted May 2, 2004 Author Share Posted May 2, 2004 How is it that my meta descriptions are picked up by Google and Yahoo (whom I think still use Google in the UK) resulting in top ten rankings on many occasions? My meta discription are being picked up on Yahoo and MSN but not on Google. I haven't seen a OSC site get the meta discription picked up on Google either. Dave Always looking for a way to improve my sites. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jack_mcs Posted May 2, 2004 Share Posted May 2, 2004 What you are doing is not that much different than what HTC is doing. In addition, you would still have to edit the 30-40 files in catalog so that they have their own title tags. You add that to your FILENAME_PRODUCT_INFO file only. And then make up some for FILENAME_DEFAULT if you feel a need to use them. What would be the point of getting pages other than FILENAME_DEFAULT and FILENAME_PRODUCT_INFO into a Search Engine? There is no way of telling what search phase someone may use to find what they are looking for. The more pages you have listed, with different titles/descriptions for each one, the more chances you have of someone finding your site. Let's say you sell cheap computers and you optimize your home page so that you are the first in a google search for "cheap computers." If someone searched for that phase then they will find you and all is good. However, if someone does a search instead for "about cheap computers," you may not be in the top ten in that search and may never be found. But if you had optimized your About Us page with a title of About Cheap Computers, then you may also be number one in a search for that phase and the person will find you. Each page is a doorway into your site but only if people can find them when they do a search. Jack Support Links: For Hire: Contact me for anything you need help with for your shop: upgrading, hosting, repairs, code written, etc. All of My Addons Get the latest versions of my addons Recommended SEO Addons Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
burt Posted May 2, 2004 Share Posted May 2, 2004 I can understand you view, but I would look to just have every product_info.php page listed and make sure that they are all optimized as best as possible. So, if I am searching for a blue widget size XL I hit your Blue Widget product page. I don't want to hit your contact_us page for example...there would be no point. I use to think the same way as you - get as many pages listed as possible, but no more. Now I only aim to get index.php and ever product listed... But you are right also - the more pages you ahve, the more chance to someone find you. But wouldn't it be nicer that they went straight in on your "blue widget" page? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jack_mcs Posted May 3, 2004 Share Posted May 3, 2004 But you are right also - the more pages you ahve, the more chance to someone find you. But wouldn't it be nicer that they went straight in on your "blue widget" page? Yes, I agree. My shop is growing (as far as customers go) but I wouldn't call it a success yet. So I guess at this point I want them getting to my site any way they can. I may well change my mind, as you did, once it is doing better. I'll look closer into the changes you suggest. Never hurts to take another look. Thanks for the exchange - I enjoyed it. :) Jack Support Links: For Hire: Contact me for anything you need help with for your shop: upgrading, hosting, repairs, code written, etc. All of My Addons Get the latest versions of my addons Recommended SEO Addons Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stevetotaro Posted May 4, 2004 Share Posted May 4, 2004 Burt, when i enter your lines of code i just get a "|" symbol between the store name and internet explorer. any ideas why? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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