SEO - Thinking aloud ... how do search engines index the site?

[hrbs]

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Just thinking aloud....
Hope some SEO gurus can help on this ... probably a very easy answer!

Have revamped my site at hrbs.biz with meaningful page names under a meaningful sub folder [thanks to all for help, incl savespy {aka Grant}] eg Looking for a fixed fee accountant? Come to High Royd Business Services Limited .
This page is page 1 on google for the term fixed fee accountant after only a few days.
(without "" ) and without paying for adwords.

My question is ...
If I have pages called, for example, [location]_payroll_services.php etc on the site but not referred to on the navigation menu, will google still index them even if they are not on the navigation menu. I presume the answer is yes as google spiders the whole site.

[location]_payroll_services.php will have the standard menu bar pointing visitors to the rest of the site and so visitors will have direct/focussed access to the rest of my site even though they came through a targetted landing page not referenced on the navigation menu nor on any other page on the site, but, importantly, indexed in google.

I can presumably extend this by using [keyword_phrase].php as a filename with tweaked content/title/header tags and the common navigation menu linking to the rest of the site?

Have i finally sussed SEO ... or am i totally confused ?

Fortunately I am better at accounting and tax planning!


Regards
Keith
High Royd Business Services Limited
Small Business Specialists

Fixed Fee Accountants and Small Business Specialists - High Royd Business Services Limited - High Royd Business Services Limited
** NEW - Accounting and taxation tips at High Royd Business Services Limited **
Have a question? Request an article or add your own tip.

[tbp]

Although Google tends to spider your whole site, it doesn't necessarily add everything to its index. MSN and Yahoo are much worse for spidering the whole site.

As a result, any pages that are really important to you do really need a link from your navigation menu, otherwise they may not get indexed (even if spidered!).

Also, help google and yahoo out by creating a sitemap, and putting a link to it in your robots.txt file telling them where to find it eg:

Sitemap: http://www.mysite.com/sitemap.xml

In my experience, it gets your site indexed quicker, and the search engines are much more likely to find everything. You must keep it up to date though. Also, adding a normal html page as a sitemap called sitemap.htm with a link to pretty much every page again helps a lot.

Adding pages with your desired (and most important) keyword for the page in the title also works well in getting the page higher up the results for that keyword. Just make sure you use:

keyword-phrase.php

rather than

keyword_phrase.php

The hypen is treated as a more general match, so it would help for "keyword","phrase" and "keyword phrase", whereas the underscore usually has to be an exact match eg "keyword phrase" only.

Does sound like you are really getting to grips with SEO. Its a really good feeling when you get the results you want. Just keep trying things, making one modification at a time, and waiting a while and seeing what happens. Its a slow process, but the best way to do it. If you change more than one thing at a time, you can't tell which change got the result.

Also bear in mind that google changes things on a pretty regular basis, so once you have the results you want, you can't just sit back and expect them to be the same forever. You have to regularly change and adapt to keep in the position you want. Reading the SEO forums and blogs really helps, as it gives you a good idea of the changes that are made, so you can help stay on top of them.

[Iskander]

Also, adding a normal html page as a sitemap called sitemap.htm with a link to pretty much every page again helps a lot.

Exactly what I was going to say. If you have anything other than a small site, then for practical reasons, you can't really list every page in the navigation menu. You can, however, link to an HTML sitemap from every page and you can have every page listed on and linked to from the sitemap.

(Unless your site is enormous, in which case you'd be advised to have a two-level sitemap).

[hrbs]

Thanks for the advice.
I do have a sitemap generated via wordpress plugin at tips.hrbs.biz . Will add link from main site.

All suggestions/recommendations welcome.

Regards
Keith
High Royd Business Services Limited
Small Business Specialists

Fixed Fee Accountants and Small Business Specialists - High Royd Business Services Limited - High Royd Business Services Limited
** NEW - Accounting and taxation tips at High Royd Business Services Limited **
Have a question? Request an article or add your own tip.

[ian-d]

no no noooo, by all means create a html sitemap for your whole site, but only link to it via your index page, don't place a link to the sitemap from all pages, the SE's don't like this one bit!

As tbp says though, try to use '-' rather than '_'

Your pages should be found by the googlebot regardless but they do prefer to follow a path, so if you don't have a direct link to the page in question within 2 clicks (i.e. index > payroll > X) its unlikely to search any further...the googlebot is very busy after all.

[DavidCartlidge]

Just make sure you use:

keyword-phrase.php

rather than

keyword_phrase.php

The hypen is treated as a more general match, so it would help for "keyword","phrase" and "keyword phrase", whereas the underscore usually has to be an exact match eg "keyword phrase" only.

Google now treats both the underscore and the hyphen as word seperators, so there is no difference anymore

[gadget]

Sitemaps .. html, htm or xml ?

[DavidCartlidge]

If you want a Google Site Map, XML, if you want a User sitemap, whatever language the rest of your site is in

[tbp]

Google now treats both the underscore and the hyphen as word seperators, so there is no difference anymore

In my own experience, this isn't the case - either that or its not working properly!

I used to use _ all the time, but lately switched to - and getting much better results.

Also I think actually - looks better to the user than _

I wouldn't risk it, and would just use a hypen by default.

[ian-d]

Yep, totally agree with tbp, a '-' is a much better SEO option than a '_'. 100% certain on that one.

[DavidCartlidge]

In my own experience, this isn't the case - either that or its not working properly!

I used to use _ all the time, but lately switched to - and getting much better results.

Also I think actually - looks better to the user than _

I wouldn't risk it, and would just use a hypen by default.

Yep, totally agree with tbp, a '-' is a much better SEO option than a '_'. 100% certain on that one.

Chaps - take a read here : Underscores are now word separators, proclaims Google | Tech news blog - CNET News.com

Sure, you should use hyphens anyway as they are better for users, but if you have underscores now, don't go changing them to hyphens as it won't matter to Google

[tbp]

Yes, I have seen that article. However, the date is 23rd July, just a few days ago, and I think a key part is:

One key development that Matt shared with the audience was that underscores in URLs are now (or at least very soon to be) treated as word separators by Google.

Doesn't necessarily mean that at this very moment it works.

Its really not a huge issue though, just use hyphens as its better for web site users anyway, and you won't have problems.

[hrbs]

Yep, totally agree with tbp, a '-' is a much better SEO option than a '_'. 100% certain on that one.

Thanks all

Have recoded using "-" instead of "_". Currently all pages are accessed through the single/simple menu but will add site map. If the site map is added to the main menu, then as this is repeated as a constant menu [php include] then presumably the recommendation is that the home page menu has the site map link but no other menu pages? ie a slightly different menu

My thoughts are to have specific landing pages for localised services ie the keywords are tweaked for each location, Barnsley, Sheffield, Huddersfield, Yorkshire, Cheshire, Manchester etc which will still use the main navigation menu. Presumably the sitemap.php page needs to include all of these landing pages?

I haven't googled for site map generators yet, but does anyone have any recommendations? [Now done by hand as site is currently only a few pages].

Regards
Keith
High Royd Business Services Limited
Small Business Specialists



** NEW - Accounting and taxation tips at High Royd Business Services Limited **
Have a question? Request an article or add your own tip.

[DavidCartlidge]

Have recoded using "-" instead of "_".

Were any of the pages in the google index before you made that change? If so, have you done a permanent redirect from the old to the new page?

Also, is there any reason you have 3 websites rather than one?

http://hrbs.biz/
http://www.hrbs.biz/
http://tips.hrbs.biz/

[hrbs]

Were any of the pages in the google index before you made that change? If so, have you done a permanent redirect from the old to the new page?

Thanks for pointing that out, have done permanent redirects as I was #2 on a misspelling accountnat (!) - Does anyone recommend putting misspellings in the meta keywords?

Also, is there any reason you have 3 websites rather than one?

http://hrbs.biz/
http://www.hrbs.biz/
http://tips.hrbs.biz/

tips.hrbs.biz is a side project providing free business guides and tips in a blog style format. It now links from the revamped main site and may be incorporated stylewise into the main site further down the road. Does this give a SEO problem? Content is not duplicated and it is generating backlinks from other blogs.

Thinking more about the landing pages eg [location]-accounting-services-from-hrbs.php . Apart from optimising keywords for [location accountant] searches would I have to change most of the page content as it would mostly be duplicating the accounting-services-from-hrbs.php content.

Regards
Keith
High Royd Business Services Limited
Small Business Specialists