Puzzled by Google rankings

I want to start by saying I do not want to cheat or practice anything morally wrong to achive better rankings. I just am wondering why it is that my site ranks so poorly for terms it should rank better on. Or more specifically why there are sites listed above me that 1: have a lower page rank 2: have less keywords on them 3: have less back links than me??? Is something wrong with my site http://www.321webmaster.com that anyone can see? Does google have a problem ranking sites done in php?

Check out my rankings for:

webmaster resources
webmaster tools
(you can add "free" in front of those searches as well)

I am 3rd and 4th pages or so deep. Which is fine with me. I don't claim that my site should be the on first page listed. What I can't understand is why there are so many sites that seem less relavant above me. Something must be wrong with my site right????

Nope.

---John Holmes...

I use a lot of floating boxes on my site CDXP.com - i kind of layer them up instead of referencing multiple HTML pages. It seemed like a good idea at the time :-) I get a big fat PR0 . I suspect i'm being penalized because the many layers could be used as a trick to hide text. In my case they aren't (well actually they are but for design reasons and only to allow you to page through the text). Google doesnt seem to like some of the more modern web abilities sadly - flash pages dont normally register well with google either (i dislike flash anyway) and i never use flash on my customer sites. I do have a link out to a couple of sites and they may be sucking me dry but i dont think so.

I seem to sit OK in the search engines including Google - their PR algorithm just doesnt like me much.

... I'm relatively new to this and have learned mostly by observation. I notice that lots of folks tout a PR2, PR4, or PRwhatever. What is it and how do you find out what you have?
Pardon the minor diversion.

RE: PR = google page rank. What is it and how do you find out what you have?

Get the google toolbar is the easiest way to find yours and other page ranks. Blocks those pesky pop ups too and doesnt seem to put adware on your system

URL

With reference to my post on PR0 above CDXP PR just went to PR3. What is interesting is that a Divine Couture a site that hasnt changed content (i know because i write it) and with only one outgoing link to CDXP site went from PR5 to PR4 at exactly the same time. In fact both sites switched around the values for 8 hours or so as i guess the google servers got updated with the new values. There may be other reasons of course but it seems like link to CDXP PR0 site had no effect, linking to CDXP PR3 site has negatively impacted them. Perhaps PR0 has a neutral value because it may mean a bad site or just a new site under review. I notice this page is PR0

CDXP

I have looked at your site and keywords.

One of the problems, if you look at the top site, is that they seem to have optimised for the phrase "free webmaster resources".
Since they also have a page rank of 1 more than yours then they have a greater advantage.

Your title is good, your main phrase is at the front so will get a high rating but your keywords are not quite so good for your keyphrase.

"webmaster, resources, tools, free, web, web design, directory, ...etc"

you would probably have been better off with "free webmaster resources" as you are with your title.

And as the No.1 position does.

You also need to put this phrase a few times into your body text.

And a couple of times in the ALT tags.

In other words use the phrase where you can but don't overdo it.

Also your Meta keywords are probably too many, about 10-20 is fine.

Try to develop KEYPHRASES which can be used in different ways, these are a lot better than a lot of single keywords.

For example your phrase "free webmaster resources" actually contains the following :

"free webmaster resources"
"free resources"
"webmaster resources"

In this way you are increasing your chances within the same keyphrase.

This is only a small outline of how to optimise your pages.

Also don't forget to optimise each single page for a different keyphrase and keywords - once again increasing your chances !!

Hope this is helpful to you !!

Incidentally I have a link to you on my website !!

PS Have just checked Google for the phrase " Puzzled by Google rankings " and under THAT heading YOU ARE NO. 1 !!

PPS Always include your FULL URL (inc http) wherever you can.

It adds up to a few more links to be counted towards your Page Rank !!

Hi Chaz,

Doing a Spidertest on 321webmaster and the guy top of the list for 'free webmaster resources' you can see some definite differences...

They mention free 23 times, webmaster 15 times and resources 12

In comparison, you mention them 3, 6 and 4 times.

So as Peter says, they're much more optimised for that phrase than you are.

Personally, I'd chop the amount of keywords you've got, but don't spend long bothering with them as I don't think any spiders bother with them any more (Google never has.)

If you mention your key words a bit more often in the text, then concentrate on getting some decent links from high page rank sites (use the Google toolbar to help you find them) and you'll soon jump up the results a bit. Get your site submitted to the right part of DMOZ, it takes a long time to get accepted, but it can be a great help in your Google rankings once you're in there.

Do that little tesst with the keywords "webmaster resources"
This sites above me do not have more keyword density then me. Must be all back links and PR?


I think I'm in dmoz like 5 times. But I will look into more keywords in text. Thank you.

I thought this wasnt good, and that spiders read keywords one at a time, no matter how many were in quotes. Thus it would look like you were keyword spamming.

It would read free 2 times webmaster 2 times, and resources 3 time

I'm afraid that you misunderstood me.

I put the phrases in quotes, in actuality they are just entered as normal keyphrases, seperated by commas.

No Google won't see it as "keyword spamming", why should it ?

These are not entered as 3 different keyphrases, they are phrases all contained within the one phrase.

It will index it as a normal keyphrase but when someone searches for a phrase or keyword which matches them then that will be returned as well.

Believe me it is a VERY good technique !!

But you MUST re-do ALL your pages, optimising for one or 2 keyphrases on each page.

At the moment you seem to have simply copied your Meta tags etc onto all your pages.

This doesn't help to get you indexed, since all the search engines will simply treat them as the same page.

The more pages you have optimised for different keyphrases then the greater chance you have of people finding your sites.

You need to put your keyphrase as the first phrase on the Meta tags, but don't simply repeat the same phrase on the Title, keyword and description tags.

On some sites like Exactseek they will simply ignore your sites if you do this.

All my internal directory pages do have different title tags. The site is done in php, so it's not like you can go through and set a bunch of static pages. Static pages....editing them one at a time....no thanks.

I still think engines would frown on the repetition of the words in the phrases, but google doesnt look at that stuff anyway.

Sorry chaz, but I don't understand what you want.

You started this thread by saying that you want to get high on Google but now you say in effect that you can't be bothered !!

Do you really think that those sites above you don't bother ?

I will bet that they're above you because among other things they DID bother !!

Remember the old adage ?

"The harder I work, the luckier I get"

Getting high on SEs isn't luck or fate or anything except hard work.

Sustained hard work.

If you don't do that then your site will never make it to the top of Google.

When did I say I cant be bothered? Quote that line for me.

I said I would never have a static page site that I would have to edit every page one at a time.