google total rubbish

bulbo · 09-06-04

I'm sorry but Google's results are now total rubbish.

In order for your site to get anywhere near decent SERPs with Google, it seems inbound links are the main criteria.

This has nothing whatsoever to do with relevancy nor the value of your site to the person searching.

I run a site (ok, ok, sour grapes coming up) which I am totally 100% convinced would assist UK visitors achieve what they are looking for on certain search terms but Google has now downgraded me to PR3 (after being PR4 for over 12 months).

At one stage, I was one the first page of the SERPs for several search entries. Now I am nowhere.

To my mind, my site has become even better because I have added about 300 more relevant products.

You want to know the URL? You want to see if I am a bitter and twisted website owner?

Ok, imagine you are looking to drive a ferrari or fly a hot air balloon, or ride a tank or whatever and visit this site:-

http://www.ukexperiencedays.co.uk

Now tell me how relevant that should be to your search.

Maybe the site isn't brilliantly designed. But would it help you find what you wanted? Which is supposed to be the purpose of Search Engines.

Come on, my site should at least appear within the first 40 results for those search terms in the UK.

As it is, it appears NOWHERE... you would have to click right to the very end of your search term to see it.

WTF am I doing wrong here?

Luke · 09-06-04

Bulbo - why don't you exchange some links?

You don't need that many inbound links to start ranking well...

It's a cool site btw, did you write all the content? It's great...

bulbo · 10-06-04

Cheers Luke

Of course, I am going to get on with Link Exchanges but I just dont think that's all a SE should be looking for.

And if it is such a major part of SEO then it's wrong.

In the end, we all just end up with huge Link Farms and that will lead to another major Google Shuffle and what will it be then?

Sites with less than 1000 IBLs are demoted?

Sites with less than 10,000? Less than 1 Million? Etc.

Yes, the site runs using PHP/MySQL and takes me quite a lot of time to keep updated - I sort the categories by hand - there is no easy way of doing it.

Actually, getting relevant Link Exchanges for this kind of thing isn't easy. I once asked for a Link Exchange from a Merchant on there and they said they wouldn't be happy as it is promoting competitors.

Looks like I have to go for semi-relevant Link Exchanges amongst the "Gifts" category which isn't what I want at all.

Mogga · 10-06-04

Lots of the top pages seem to be just half links to other pages using similar keyphrases... not very useful as a lot of the time they have no real content.

I agree that google aint what it used to be.

mibut · 10-06-04

Take a look at your metatags especially the titles.
activity gift gets almost 8000 searches in overture compared with
uk experience days which got no searches in May.

drivetowin · 10-06-04

Bulbo

Nice site but I'd echo what Mibut has said about your title tags.

Also, from Googles perspective all it would see on your home page is link after link after link (ok they're all internal) but all links nonetheless - i.e. there is no 'natural content' on the homepage - so your relevance factor is probably fairly low.

Luke · 10-06-04

The internal pages won't be penalised because there is no content on the homepage.

The title tags are critical though as said above, without a doubt.

Also I don't care what anyone says, but there is a lot of bull**** surrounding SEO and while it might be true, having relevant links is still pure conjecture - THAT is a fact.

All I know is that title tags and inbound links definitely help.

Things like relevant links, H1/H2etc tags, alt tags, url, relevant anchor text in the inbound links probably do help, but no one apart from google really knows how much.

gw3000 · 10-06-04

Totally agree bulbo!
One of my sites went from a PR4 to a PR3, i have a good few inbound links though!

Also referals from google went from just over 4000 in April to just over 2000 last month, and like your site - my results used to appear in the top 10 - on page 1 and have since dropped to even page 5!

I have made no major changes (any if all) to the pages mentioned - so i just don't know why this has happened and what to do!!!!!!!

mibut · 10-06-04

pr rating means a lot less than it used to.
Content, keyword density, metatags,quality relevant links,updating site often and even age of site all mean more than pr.
New sites often quickly get good results and then drop out after a month or two.
This seems to be the new google norm and unfortunately you have to adapt or die.
Also remember there are a lot of search engines out there, don't just concentrate on google.

getvisible · 10-06-04

Quote:

having relevant links is still pure conjecture - THAT is a fact.

I'd disagree it helps to "theme" sites which is a strong asset when google does its preselection of sites to recalculate to obtain the final score for the serps.

gw3000 · 10-06-04

Just to add that this site in particular has been live since last May of which it started to get into the search engines in July (as you can see by my log files).
However the meta tag analyzer website that i use states the following:

Keywords - "characters we recommend for this tag is 500"
Description - "characters we recommend for this tag is 200"
And they also give a keyword relevancy to page content.

Now some of my pages contain, way over these limits and also certain page contain "very poor keyword relevancy" - as they state.
However these are the page that get high results within the SERPS!

These are not the pages in mention that have dropped down!
So maybe it may change again - who knows!