Page Rank 8 and back again

[Cerberus]

Your original post quesitoned why most people ignored the other SE's.

Nope - It was to point out that Google isn't the only search engine.

 

Now you are saying why aren't people concerned that one listing might be a little higher than the other.

Wrong again - never said that.

 

If my pages are in the top of google, I know it will most likely be in the top 10 or 20 for MSN and Yahoo. I would work on improving those positions of course

So back to my ORIGINAL post - shouldn't there be some talk about how to do that too? (which wizardsandwars has now done somewhat - thank you).

 

But don't worry, I won't trouble you with any more 'folly'

[Huntress]

osC newbie here...

 

Researching SEO for a site we are getting ready to release. I've been brought into the project just one week prior to the release. I have seen references to "Safe Search Engine URLs" and turning it on in Admin, however this is either an old obsolete option, or I am not finding this. Or another issue?

 

Thoughts?

 

Thanks,

 

Diana

[Jack_mcs]

It is not receommnded that you use that option. It tends to break the shop. There are six (I think) contribution that will provide SEF urls for your though.

 

Jack

[Huntress]

It is not receommnded that you use that option. It tends to break the shop. There are six (I think) contribution that will provide SEF urls for your though.

 

Jack

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Thank you Jack, can you be more specific on which contributions?

 

BTW... your contributions (among others) to this topic have been extremely valuable to me.

[Jack_mcs]

Take a look at this thread. I'm glad I can be of help. Others have done the same for me many times.

 

Jack

[Huntress]

Take a look at this thread. I'm glad I can be of help. Others have done the same for me many times.

 

Jack

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Thanks... exactly what I needed. I would have found it if only I had used "SEF" in my search criteria :-"

[webbqt]

I know it's been a while since anyone has posted here....but I have to tell you the best SEO advice I was ever given....Ready? Here it is:

 

Quit worrying about search engines, and make your site with your customers in mind. What good does it do you to have high ranking and lots of "visitors" if they click right back out because you have nothing to offer.

 

Ok, there is is. I had done a LOT of studying and worring about all this SEO stuff when I came across this. So, that's what I did. That's why I even found and started using osCommerce - to make my site better for my "visitors". I quit watching my PR in google, and checking 3 or 4 times a day to see where my traffic came from and really put my time and effort in making the site better for buying traffic. My site jumped up to 4 in google (5 on parts of the site). I do links, and I do all the SEO stuff...but that's secondary after customer care and consideration. Since I started using osC, that part (the catalog part) isn't ranking yet, but it will follow. I kept the home page that ranked, and redirected the pages that ranked 5 to the catalog part of the site. This month I have averaged 422.5 visitors per day....it's a slow month. My sales went up after using osC for the shopping cart. Then I added different ways to pay - other than just PayPal - and my sales went up again. Options, options, options....I love them, and so do my customers. I'd rather have 10 buying customers than 100 "just looking" visitors.

 

I know this thread is about page rank...but I'd like more info on what to do with the visitors once you get them on the site. I read earlier in this thread (I think it was this thread anyway), that in a brick and mortor store you have the change to chat with a customer before they leave....so how can we make sure the "visitor" doesn't get away without letting them know we have what they want, they just don't know they want it yet.

 

Any suggestions to make my site better (for shopping or seo) would be greatly appreciated:

www.webbsgraphics.com

 

Thanks,

Denise

[Mary-at-Milton]

I know it's been a while since anyone has posted here....but I have to tell you the best SEO advice I was ever given....Ready? Here it is:

 

Quit worrying about search engines, and make your site with your customers in mind. What good does it do you to have high ranking and lots of "visitors" if they click right back out because you have nothing to offer.

 

Ok, there is is. I had done a LOT of studying and worring about all this SEO stuff when I came across this. So, that's what I did. That's why I even found and started using osCommerce - to make my site better for my "visitors". I quit watching my PR in google, and checking 3 or 4 times a day to see where my traffic came from and really put my time and effort in making the site better for buying traffic. My site jumped up to 4 in google (5 on parts of the site). I do links, and I do all the SEO stuff...but that's secondary after customer care and consideration. Since I started using osC, that part (the catalog part) isn't ranking yet, but it will follow. I kept the home page that ranked, and redirected the pages that ranked 5 to the catalog part of the site. This month I have averaged 422.5 visitors per day....it's a slow month. My sales went up after using osC for the shopping cart. Then I added different ways to pay - other than just PayPal - and my sales went up again. Options, options, options....I love them, and so do my customers. I'd rather have 10 buying customers than 100 "just looking" visitors.

 

I know this thread is about page rank...but I'd like more info on what to do with the visitors once you get them on the site. I read earlier in this thread (I think it was this thread anyway), that in a brick and mortor store you have the change to chat with a customer before they leave....so how can we make sure the "visitor" doesn't get away without letting them know we have what they want, they just don't know they want it yet.

 

Any suggestions to make my site better (for shopping or seo) would be greatly appreciated:

www.webbsgraphics.com

 

Thanks,

Denise

Hi Denise,

I fully agree with what you said. I too have concentrated on the content in my shops and getting customers to find and buy what they are looking for. I also do optimising for seach engines so that people can find me. I try not to worry too much about what other people are doing. I did an EXCELLENT course on the internet (for free) given by someone who wanted to help others. After following her course, I noticed a marked difference in sales. She says you have to find your niche and concentrate on that. It was a little difficult keeping up with the course, I admit as I have to run two businesses but perseverance is the key. Just keep on plugging away... but first, keep the customers happy.

 

I think that one should have a good search facility on the site. This is what I want to concentrate on next as I have a contribution installed at the moment but it needs tweaking and I don't know how as I'm not a programmer. I know what people are searching for on my site as it shows their keywords, but the results are not always what they should be or what I would like them to be. Anyone reading this have anything in mind?

[boxtel]

Hi Denise,

I fully agree with what you said. I too have concentrated on the content in my shops and getting customers to find and buy what they are looking for. I also do optimising for seach engines so that people can find me. I try not to worry too much about what other people are doing. I did an EXCELLENT course on the internet (for free) given by someone who wanted to help others. After following her course, I noticed a marked difference in sales. She says you have to find your niche and concentrate on that. It was a little difficult keeping up with the course, I admit as I have to run two businesses but perseverance is the key. Just keep on plugging away... but first, keep the customers happy.

 

I think that one should have a good search facility on the site. This is what I want to concentrate on next as I have a contribution installed at the moment but it needs tweaking and I don't know how as I'm not a programmer. I know what people are searching for on my site as it shows their keywords, but the results are not always what they should be or what I would like them to be. Anyone reading this have anything in mind?

 

These are my two shops:

Milton Gems

Alive! Jewellery

 

a little feature I use is that when customers come in via a search engine, I highlight the keywords they used at that search engine on the page they land on.

 

You could extend that by already putting those same keywords in your site's search keywords field so that they can search inside your site for the same keywords with just 1 press of a button.

 

Since I use page cache, I cannot do this effectively but it might increase your customer's shopping experience (always wanted to use that phrase).

[webbqt]

Hi Denise,

I fully agree with what you said. I too have concentrated on the content in my shops and getting customers to find and buy what they are looking for. I also do optimising for seach engines so that people can find me. I try not to worry too much about what other people are doing. I did an EXCELLENT course on the internet (for free) given by someone who wanted to help others. After following her course, I noticed a marked difference in sales. She says you have to find your niche and concentrate on that. It was a little difficult keeping up with the course, I admit as I have to run two businesses but perseverance is the key. Just keep on plugging away... but first, keep the customers happy.

 

I think that one should have a good search facility on the site. This is what I want to concentrate on next as I have a contribution installed at the moment but it needs tweaking and I don't know how as I'm not a programmer. I know what people are searching for on my site as it shows their keywords, but the results are not always what they should be or what I would like them to be. Anyone reading this have anything in mind?

 

Do you remember where you found that course? I'd be interested in trying it myself. Also, I'm just using the search feature that comes with osC....is there a better one that you use? I just sell decals on my site, so I figured as long as I named them correctly that search would be ok...it never occured to me there might be a better one.

[webbqt]

a little feature I use is that when customers come in via a search engine, I highlight the keywords they used at that search engine on the page they land on.

 

You could extend that by already putting those same keywords in your site's search keywords field so that they can search inside your site for the same keywords with just 1 press of a button.

 

Since I use page cache, I cannot do this effectively but it might increase your customer's shopping experience (always wanted to use that phrase).

 

How in the world do you highlight the keywords on your page that brought them there!?! That sounds like a very good thing to do. If it was me searching, and I opened a page that had what I was looking for highlighted...I'd stay there. I know I want to increase my customer's shopping experience too! (it is a great phrase to use B) )

[boxtel]

How in the world do you highlight the keywords on your page that brought them there!?! That sounds like a very good thing to do. If it was me searching, and I opened a page that had what I was looking for highlighted...I'd stay there. I know I want to increase my customer's shopping experience too! (it is a great phrase to use B) )

 

well, I have put that in the tips and trick section a long time ago.

 

maybe I will drop it as a contrib some day.

 

In any case, the keywords (without the highlighting) from the search engines you obtain with:

 

<?php

define('SEKW',true); // the switch

$se_keywords = "";

if (

(!$spider_flag) and // not for spiders

(SEKW) and // on

(isset($_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER'])) and // referer set

($_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER'] != '') // referer not empty

) {

$url = urldecode($_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER']);

if (eregi("www\.google",$url)) {

preg_match("'(\?|&)q=(.*?)(&|$)'si", " $url ", $se_keywords);

} elseif (eregi("www\.alltheweb",$url)) {

preg_match("'(\?|&)q=(.*?)(&|$)'si", " $url ", $se_keywords);

} elseif (eregi("search\.msn",$url)) {

preg_match("'(\?|&)q=(.*?)(&|$)'si", " $url ", $se_keywords);

} elseif ((eregi("yahoo\.com",$url)) or (eregi("search\.yahoo",$url))) {

preg_match("'(\?|&)p=(.*?)(&|$)'si", " $url ", $se_keywords);

} elseif (eregi("looksmart\.com",$url)) {

preg_match("'(\?|&)qt=(.*?)(&|$)'si", " $url ", $se_keywords);

} elseif (eregi("search\.netcenter",$url)) {

preg_match("'(\?|&)query=(.*?)(&|$)'si", " $url ", $se_keywords);

} elseif (eregi("aolsearch\.aol",$url)) {

preg_match("'(\?|&)query=(.*?)(&|$)'si", " $url ", $se_keywords);

} elseif (eregi("comcast\.net",$url)) {

preg_match("'(\?|&)query=(.*?)(&|$)'si", " $url ", $se_keywords);

} elseif (eregi("froogle\.google\.com",$url)) {

preg_match("'(\?|&)q=(.*?)(&|$)'si", " $url ", $se_keywords);

} elseif (eregi("baidu\.com",$url)) {

preg_match("'(\?|&)wd=(.*?)(&|$)'si", " $url ", $se_keywords);

} elseif (eregi("mamma\.com",$url)) {

preg_match("'(\?|&)query=(.*?)(&|$)'si", " $url ", $se_keywords);

}

 

if (($se_keywords[2] != '') and ($se_keywords[2] != ' ')) {

$se_keywords = preg_replace('/"|\'/', '', $se_keywords[2]);

}

}

?>

 

 

you can use this in application_top.php and fill your site search keywords field with $se_keywords.

[andy39surf]

I have literally only just discovered OS commerce today after a friend set up a dedicated Apache server for a client using OS commerce. I am a web designer and am in the planning stage of implementing an online shop for a site I already manage. I have aspirations to become proficient in organic search optimisation, and though I feel I a long way off from that, i feel well qualified to comment on this post.

 

Anyway to anyone attracted to this post by the PR8 thing, can I put it in perspective. Yahoo.co.uk is PR8, yahoo.com PR9, google.com PR9, ebay.co.uk PR9, download.com PR8. What this guy has stated is actually almost impossible. Go to alexa.com and check out the top 500 sites in the world and check their page rank. Listen to the posts that tell you to focus on your customers needs and stop "chasing the algorithm" Search engines are extremely smart and getting smarter. If you spam them you will get found out eventually by either the engines or a competitor reporting you.

 

SEO is hard work, I know I have made many mistakes, and I have just reached the stage where I've finally got the content thing. Spiders need spider food and they eat content, content, content. Yes of course links are important, but with all the backlinks in the world if you don't have the relevant content, you won't get past the filter stage engines use, so your link popularity won't count.

 

Worry about all the tips and tweaks after you have provided your customers with the content they want, that is what the spiders are looking for. The search engines are spending millions every day to satisfy searchers not optimisers. Think about it, cos they have and they know every trick in the book. Add static or information pages to your site. Most purchasers start out as informational searchers and convert to transactional searchers at some point.

 

For on page optimisation, above anything else concentrate on the title tage, it is the single most important tag of all because the engines all rank it very highly in their algorithms, and searchers concentrate on it and the snippet in search results pages which will increase your clickthroughs. Of course have the keyword in the rest of the page as well at the right density.

 

Try not to optimise for keywords, go for keyphrases. The SEO elite are the only ones who will score on single competitive keywords, unless they are very obscure.

 

Don't submit to 100's of engines. It doesn't work and is a waste of time. All you need to do is get a link from any half decent page already indexed by Google, Yahoo or MSN and they will find you. This is the best submission tip I ever got. There aren't any other important engines worth worrying about, if you are indexed on these, every other important engine will find you as they get their organic results from them anyway.

 

Also don't submit your site too early, if you are spidered and they don't like the taste you won't get indexed.

 

I hope this has been useful and I can't wait for the guy who posts "PR10 in 3 easy steps" If anyone can find a PR10, please let me know!!!! ***

 

 

Bye for now.

 

*** If you even thought about looking, you need to do some more homework, much much more.

[ras]

I know it's been a while since anyone has posted here....but I have to tell you the best SEO advice I was ever given....Ready? Here it is:

 

Then I added different ways to pay - other than just PayPal - and my sales went up again

 

Do i need more options? i can get peyments with paypal and if the client doesnt have paypal account he can pay with his creditcard.

 

i yes what option ?

[webbqt]

Do i need more options? i can get peyments with paypal and if the client doesnt have paypal account he can pay with his creditcard.

 

i yes what option ?

 

 

I only had Paypal to begin with. I added the option of check/money order, and started getting more sales that way. I have a few sales Pending because they never sent in a check/money order, and I don't make a decal/graphics until the check arrives (if it's a large $ amount, I wait until the check clears). But that seemed to bring in more sales. Then I added fax/phone credit card payment and that really increased sales. Some people are just afraid of Paypal or giving their information online so I found a way to make sure and get these people as customers too.

[coxj2901]

Hi all,

 

Could anyone help me? Google has still not indexed any of my pages and I'm not sure where I am going wrong. I have submitted my sites to all major search engines and only msn and searchwarp recognises it.

 

In searchwarp my description comes up as top>catalog etc..... How do I get it to display a friendly description?

 

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&c2cof...vinyl.com&meta=

 

My website is called www.officialvinyl.com.

 

Any help would be much appreciated.

 

Kind Regards,

 

John

[boxtel]

Hi all,

 

Could anyone help me? Google has still not indexed any of my pages and I'm not sure where I am going wrong. I have submitted my sites to all major search engines and only msn and searchwarp recognises it.

 

In searchwarp my description comes up as top>catalog etc..... How do I get it to display a friendly description?

 

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&c2cof...vinyl.com&meta=

 

My website is called www.officialvinyl.com.

 

Any help would be much appreciated.

 

Kind Regards,

 

John

 

 

could be because your description meta tag is not closed:

 

<meta name="description" content="We sell rare vinyl records and picture discs at affordable prices. "

<meta name="keywords" content="picture discs,vinyl picture disc,pic discs, vinyl picture discs, rare vinyl, limited edition vinyl, 7 inch vinyl, 12 inch vinyl, beatles vinyl, madonna vinyl, madness vinyl, oasis vinyl, ash vinyl, blur vinyl, charlatans vinyl, caesers vinyl, cast vinyl, coldplay vinyl, doves vinyl, david bowie vinyl, depeche mode vinyl , franz ferdinand vinyl, hundred reasons vinyl, kular shaker vinyl, liberines vinyl, nirvana vinyl, prince vinyl, razorlight vinyl, supergrass vinyl, zutons vinyl">

<meta name="rating" content="General">

[boxtel]

could be because your description meta tag is not closed:

 

<meta name="description" content="We sell rare vinyl records and picture discs at affordable prices. "

<meta name="keywords" content="picture discs,vinyl picture disc,pic discs, vinyl picture discs, rare vinyl, limited edition vinyl, 7 inch vinyl, 12 inch vinyl, beatles vinyl, madonna vinyl, madness vinyl, oasis vinyl, ash vinyl, blur vinyl, charlatans vinyl, caesers vinyl, cast vinyl, coldplay vinyl, doves vinyl, david bowie vinyl, depeche mode vinyl , franz ferdinand vinyl, hundred reasons vinyl, kular shaker vinyl, liberines vinyl, nirvana vinyl, prince vinyl, razorlight vinyl, supergrass vinyl, zutons vinyl">

<meta name="rating" content="General">

 

 

and you have several items double:

 

<html>

<head>

<title>Official Vinyl Rare vinyl and picture discs at affordable prices</title>

<meta http-equiv="Content-Type"

<meta name="title" content="Official Vinyl">

<meta name="description" content="We sell rare vinyl records and picture discs at affordable prices. "

<meta name="keywords" content="picture discs,vinyl picture disc,pic discs, vinyl picture discs, rare vinyl, limited edition vinyl, 7 inch vinyl, 12 inch vinyl, beatles vinyl, madonna vinyl, madness vinyl, oasis vinyl, ash vinyl, blur vinyl, charlatans vinyl, caesers vinyl, cast vinyl, coldplay vinyl, doves vinyl, david bowie vinyl, depeche mode vinyl , franz ferdinand vinyl, hundred reasons vinyl, kular shaker vinyl, liberines vinyl, nirvana vinyl, prince vinyl, razorlight vinyl, supergrass vinyl, zutons vinyl">

<meta name="rating" content="General">

<meta name="robots" content="INDEX,FOLLOW">

<meta name="revisit-after" content="1 day">

<meta name="Identifier-URL" content="http://www.officialvinyl.com">

<meta name="Reply-to" content="[email protected]">

</head>

</html>

 

<!doctype html public "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">

<html dir="LTR" lang="en">

<head>

<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">

<title>OfficialVinyl</title>

<base href="http://www.officialvinyl.com/">

<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="stylesheet.css">

</head>

<body marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" topmargin="0" bottommargin="0" leftmargin="0" rightmargin="0">

 

........................

[jlknauff]

I have been using Google AdWords and having to pay for visitors to my site. So far I have been getting around 300 a day which easily is enough to get a page rank.

The number of visitors has no bearing on your pagerank.

 

 

This is not good so I added the <?php echo META_TAG_TITLE; ?> <?php echo META_TAG_DESCRIPTION; ?> to the top of the page. I then used the style sheet to change the height into 0px and make the words invisible. This worked and when Google index my site again I had a perfect description of my products.

 

3rd Google was still not indexing my pages past 3 layers so I installed a page with links to all my products. Again I used style sheet to hide this from customers but Google?s spiders will still see it. Now from what I have read Google does not like there being more then 100 links on a page. I have over 700 products so I had to split the links page into 8 pages (don?t for get to create back links to you main page). After another month my rank went to 3.

That is a good way to get banned. It is a clear violation of Google (and other SEs) TOS.

 

 

4th I linked my 3 duplicate osCommerce sites(for different countries) onto a links page which put my page rank to 4 on my main page but rankings on my other pages was at 3 after another month of waiting. I then decided to put links to all my other sites at the bottom of the pages and again use style sheets to hide it from customers. This then spread my ranking across the rest of the pages.

Another way to get banned.

 

 

5th I added 1 link to a friend on my links page to people who had a higher page rank then me and got them to link back. After 2 weeks this increased my page rank to 5. After that I went looking for all the sites I could link to with a higher PR. I managed to get over 30 people on my links page which put my ranking to 8 after another month.

Um...Links to other sites does not increase your PR. Nice thought though. Even 10x that number of links POINTING TO YOUR SITE would not give you a PR8.

 

 

Google likes .html extensions. If you are hosting from home change your apache config to include html extensions to run .php code.

Extensions have no bearing on anything.

 

 

For anyone reading this guy's post - use it as an example of what not to do.

[RobNYC]

Whats the url to your pr8 site??

[andy39surf]

I have been using Google AdWords and having to pay for visitors to my site. So far I have been getting around 300 a day which easily is enough to get a page rank.

ppc and pagerank are in no way related, could we have a url to this site.

[AnalyzeThis]

Usefull SEO links

Google

SEO Useful articles

GAG-IS

[coultog]

Just to add my comments to this long post...

 

I added my site to google too early. It was still in progress and didn't really have anything meaningful on it. I then had to wait two months for google to come back and re-index the site. In these two months a lot of work was put into SEO and adding products.

 

Google has now updated, however, still isn't indexing our content, only our T&C's etc. I understand it's a waiting game and I can be waiting for along time.

 

I have two plans over the coming weeks:

 

Add the dynamic header contrib

Remove the requirement for an account

Add some more verbage to each clock

 

If anyone has got any ideas on what I can do to improve my PR and how the site looks, please let me know. All feedback grately received :)

 

www.clockco.co.uk

 

Cheers, Gary

[jainmukul]

HI ,

i have a website 123india.com greetings

which has got a very low pr inspite of getting links from major pr sites.Is there any way that i can improve my site ranking.Please help me out.

 

Gautam,

 

I saw that you have good page Rank, would you share what you did to get to good page rank with the community.

 

I have webstore at www.e-xcessories.com and I am trying to understand what I can do to make it better as we do not have any page rank, although I can see that all the pages are indexed in google.

 

I am planning to do this

 

1. Add META Description contrib, and put META DESC on header.php with 0px font text.

 

Apart from above, I already have titles coming for the each pages.

 

Please suggest me more to get a better page Rank. Would be interested if any community members are interested in the link exchange with our site as well.

 

 

Mukul Jain

[jainmukul]

Gautam,

 

I saw that you have good page Rank, would you share what you did to get to good page rank with the community.

 

I have webstore at www.e-xcessories.com and I am trying to understand what I can do to make it better as we do not have any page rank, although I can see that all the pages are indexed in google.

 

I am planning to do this

 

1. Add META Description contrib, and put META DESC on header.php with 0px font text.

 

Apart from above, I already have titles coming for the each pages.

 

Please suggest me more to get a better page Rank. Would be interested if any community members are interested in the link exchange with our site as well.

Mukul Jain

 

Sorry the site is

www.e-xcessories.com