| LED Digest 1866: Google Troubles |
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================================================== The LED Digest Moderated Discussion List "Effective Online Advertising, Since 1997" pair Networks: The LED's Web Host Hosting and Domain Reg. from a Trusted Leader pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains ================================================== Guest Moderator: Published by: Veronica Yuill LED Digest post,led-digest.com http://www.led-digest.com ................................................ September 8, 2004 Issue #1866 ................................................ .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ===== NEW ======================= --== UK Google Anomaly ==-- ~ Dirk van der Werff "Does anyone have an insight into why I seem to be doing so badly in the UK version of Google - and what I may be able to do..." --== SEO Recommendations ==-- ~ Beth Durkee "I have a client who would like to ramp up their search engine placement ... Is there a product, strategy, or SEO company out there that I could recommend?..." ==== CONTINUING ================= --== Shopping Cart Code -- Advice Needed ==-- ~ Michael Tidmore "You are working way too hard on your coding problem!..." --== The Future of SEO ==-- ~ David Yancey "My reasoning focused on the approximately 90% of Internet users who do *not* (normally or regularly) use the crawler engines..." ==== BILLBOARD =================== --== Web Browser Hijackers ==-- ~ James Haley "The Internet is replete with con-ware just out to take you money, so do some research before you download anything..." ===== NEW ================================= From: Dirk van der Werff Subject: UK Google Anomaly Hello LEDers! My new website at http://www.plants-magazine.com/ has been live for 8 weeks now. For the particular keywords 'plants', 'rare plants', 'new plants', 'garden plants', 'new garden plants' I have been in the top 10 on Google virtually since it began. I have also been in the top ten (and often top) in the uk version of the site www.google.co.uk Since my revamp (keeping the same meta tags even though, due to a mistake years ago, the descriptive and keyword tags are switched around), the main Google site has kept PLANTS magazine in pretty much the same places. In the UK version of the search engine, the site and many pages is cataloged, but doesn't appear for any of the search phrases in the first 20 pages? What gives? I can't figure it and received just a stock answer when I sent an e-mail to Google .. it can't be a natural 'churn' - can it? In case it helps you, I have had http://www.plants-magazine.co.uk pointed to the main site for many years too, but I presume this would be advantageous in a UK serach engine / directory ... does anyone else have an insight into why I seem to be doing so badly in the UK version of Google - and what I may be able to do. many thanks Dirk van der Werff Editor / Publisher ------- new post - new topic ------- From: Beth Durkee Subject: SEO Recommendations Dear Fellow LEDers, I have a client who would like to ramp up their search engine placement, which I believe has become something of a fine art these days. They're not looking for pay-per-click programs but rather have a good product they'd like to be found when the right key words are typed in a search engine. Is there a product, strategy, or SEO company out there that I could recommend for this client? For instance, I've worked with MSN's Submit It! product in the past and had some success. I'd like to steer this client in the right direction and would appreciate your thoughts. Thanks, Beth M. Durkee, CIW Eyeland Creations Web Site Design & Beyond W: http://www.eyelandcreations.com ===== CONTINUING ================================= From: Michael Tidmore Subject: Shopping Cart Code -- Advice Needed Hi Tom, Do yourself a big favor...visit this site http://www.ecommercetemplates.com. I am a beginning web designer and have used this incredibly easy to install shopping cart system for 5 of my clients, they all absolutely love it and the price is incredible! You can incorporate your own design into the "generic" template they sell. You are working way too hard on your coding problem! By the way, it comes with a back end admin panel for making updates to the database. You'll love it, I guarantee it. (Jeez sounds like I'm working for these guys, huh? I am not affiliated in any way, just a big fan). Good luck! Sincerely, Michael Tidmore President 75Bucks.com ------- new post - new topic ------- From: David Yancey Subject: The Future of SEO In LED # 1862, Pat McCarthy wonders again why I predict that directory-type listings will tend to produce the lion’s share of commercially useful or shopping-intended leads as the web evolves in the next few years. Sorry for the (several instances of) confusion, Pat*rick*! Let me make clear that by “directory” type listings, I mean *any* case where the website owner has taken some proactive action to get his or her site listed and visible to a potential prospect. This includes not simply the cases where you decide to, for example, buy an online Yellow Pages listing, or “pay for inclusion”. By the way, getting listed in directories will also tend to help your crawler rank! Further, my admittedly rough prediction also suggested that a large chunk of leads will come in the future from non-search references and links, such as community-board posts, link exchanges, blog references, and links that are found in product reviews or other articles. For example, Pat gets (I hope!) pre-screened, high quality traffic from a recommendation for his site in one of our “www.ibiztips.com” articles, which is in a solidly-performing Page Rank 6 site. These mentions, too, really help improve your crawler rank. Pat, with a number of your examples, you are speaking as a *user*, not as one who owns a business. Hey, I’ll agree that anyone who is web- savvy can use Google to get “results” relatively fast. The same is true with the new Yahoo engine, and will doubtless be the case with the revamped MSN, already in Beta and coming soon to a browser near you. But I was writing as a designer of search platforms, and also under my other hat as an analyst of small business marketing performance and economics. My reasoning focused on the approximately 90% of Internet users who do *not* (normally or regularly) use the crawler engines. They need products and services, too, and would surely like to look online, but for whatever reason, have not found the crawlers to be the friendliest or most current place to look. When Pat does write as an online business owner, he recounts that his experience shows that the majority of his traffic comes from the crawlers. But, Pat, the issue here isn’t whether the crawlers can be effective! The issue is *how* effective, relatively speaking, for the normal or newer site owner. Also, Pat speaks from the perspective of a B2B site. I hope I was careful in my posts to address my forecast to consumer-focused businesses and sites, primarily. These are the ones that must somehow attract the everyday, busy, non-tech-savvy users. Pat, B2B searchers are typically *much* more sophisticated web users, so naturally they will tend to find your great sites in crawler engines. But, Pat, just for argument’s sake: I wonder if you have ever thought to do an empirically sound test of the *less-savvy* smaller business owners out there, and seen just how the *majority* would go about finding kits for business planning like yours? Might be an instructive experiment, no? Even better, try tests specifically oriented at women and then seniors who have expressed an interest in starting a new business. Survey the browsers in the business section of a large bookstore, maybe? You get my point: the visitors you are seeing in your sites are the *ones who knew how and where to go find them*. Is this 10% of the *real* audience who wants info on “business plans”? 20%? Half? But back to the main points: Pat writes as one of the most well-established sites in his category. I specifically directed my remarks, on the other hand, to the newer and smaller site owners. Pat has had years and years to earn the links that push his sites to the very top of all three crawlers. He did it with solid products and *much* persistence and many high- quality links. He and his team are to be congratulated! And, as I said in my posts would be the case, being in the very top few listings on all three major crawlers, Pat *of course* is getting the great majority of click-throughs from people searching for “business plans”! Pat’s experience does not run counter to my “prediction” - - it *proves* it! As I said, the *very few* consistently successful SEO-performing sites will command almost all the crawler traffic, leaving the vast majority of commercial sites effectively out of the running, so far as SEO results go. Sadly, Pat’s experience with crawlers is not that of the typical site owner, especially one who is starting out. The small cooking accessories store who needs to develop an online presence in order to help stop the loss of walk-in traffic to other, more web-savvy stores, and to compete with online kitchen accessory sellers, will be going up against *thousands* of competing sites, many of which have hundreds of links going for them, as well as more developed and polished site structures and text. For these smaller and newer business owners, who, Pat, it may interest you to know, number above 20 *million* businesses globally, the hope that they may someday earn a first page listing in a crawler type engine in their main, most frequent keywords, is a very unrealistic one, I contend. So, sure, they should do the SEO basics. But then focus most of their traffic building efforts on non-crawler-based methods. For many sites, some of the alternative methods will be SEM programs and link- building, of course, so they will as a result tend to improve their “natural” search ranking in the crawlers. But doing SEM and link- building is just part of the needed investment. I need to emphasize that the *typical* business, which is a local retail or other locally-focused service, needs to learn how to use the web as part of their *locally-targeted* promo efforts. The crawlers are several years away from being effective traffic generators for these businesses. And, believe it, when the crawlers do finally “get” local search, they will be “rewarding” the older, better-linked pages in beautiful downtown Burbank or wherever, *not* the poor newbie sites. I (and doubtless, many other LED readers) have a great deal more to suggest in these non-SEO areas of traffic-building. These alternatives can make us enough threads to keep LED humming and productive for all of 2005. Let’s attack those more constructive and higher-payout ideas, and keep SEO proper in realistic perspective. David Yancey http://www.vivante.com ==== BILLBOARD ==================================== From: James Haley Subject: Web Browser Hijackers In LED 1860 Kathy Wilson Anderson regarding Web Browser Hijackers suggested downloading Xoftspy ... Well I did it and it wanted money to clear what it said I had. I decided to do a search on google on this software and found numerous beware warnings that this software is a scam. It listed that I had all these hidden softwares on my PC and they were the exact ones that were listed in these warnings. Adware 6.-0 never found any of them. I searched my system and registry for them and came up blank. I would recommend that you do not use this software. I don't know what would be a reliable spyware remover but I would say be careful in this regard as you all know the internet is repleat with con-ware just out to take you money, so do some research before you download anything. James Haley Internet Developer ------------------------------------------------------- The LED Digest is sponsored by pair Networks: pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains Copyright 1995-2004 Adam Audette. All Rights Reserved. ----------------------------------------------------------------- "Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence." - Napoleon Bonaparte |
