| LED Digest 1920: Optimizing Rankings for PHP Sites |
|
|
|
================================================== 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 ================================================== List Moderator: Published by: Adam Audette LED Digest adam,led-digest.com http://www.led-digest.com ............................................... January 18, 2005 Issue #1920 ............................................... .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ======= NEW ===================== --== PHP and Search Rankings ==-- ~ Neveen Awad "...we had the site redone with PHP and we have pretty much fallen off the face of the earth." ==== CONTINUING ================= --== Problems for Linkers ==-- ~ William Ernest Waites "Does anyone have any data on how often links pages are accessed?" ~ Michael Martinez "...making [your site] a dead end for information makes your site less attractive and less useful..." ~ Tom Aman "Without links, there would be no Web." ==== BILLBOARD =================== --== Dropped by Google ==-- ~ Sonia King --== Theft of Copywritten Material ==-- ~ Nancy Schettler --== CSS Cross-Browser Issue ==-- ~ Tom Anson From: Neveen Awad Subject: Google Optimization problems with PHP site I manage the site: www.legalwins.com (mirrored at www.michiganowi.com). We were very well ranked for almost two years for our main key words (e.g. Michigan DUI Laws, Michigan drunk Driving attorney), but then we had the site redone with PHP and we have pretty much fallen off the face of the earth. The homepage still has a PR of 4, and we have quite a few reciprocal links. I would welcome any suggestions. . .. Thanks Neveen Awad ===== CONTINUING ================================= From: William Ernest Waites Subject: Linking > ... the best place [for links] is not on a links page, > but in the middle of relevant content... I'm not > recommending dropping a links page - just putting > them throughout the site also. - Michael Linehan, LED 1919 I was simply making the point that one of the most popular rationales for links, is that they help people get information on a topic. This seems largely outdated in a time when entering a search term in Google will get you a zillion links of information from Google. Talking to the other issue of how helpful links are to site visitors, setting aside that they may be rarely used in actuality, it is one thing to provide a page of links for people who want more information and want to use links to find them. (Does anyone have any data on how often links pages are accessed?) It is something all together different, however, to insert a link into a presentation of information intended to result in a sale (aka a "sales pitch"). It interrupts the logic and flow of the presentation. It would be like talking to a customer on the sales floor and interrupting the presentation to refer to something else happening elsewhere. Competition or not, it just doesn't make good sense. Incidentally, before a purist protests that a sales presentation is unworthy of protection, please accept that a good sales person / presentation is helping the customer solve a problem. It may, on some occasions, when the customer asks, "Where can I get more information on this subject?" make sense to advise them about other information sources. But to interrupt the information gathering process to send someone off to another place - with no assurance that the material on the other end of that link is accurate, current or what it was when the link was created - is as big a disservice to the cutomer as it is to seller. When I sold shoes, we had a saying, "Never show a customer more than one pair of shoes at a time. The customer will become confused by the choice and leave without buying anything." Assuming the customer came into the store to buy shoes, leaving without buying ends up with a shoeless customer and salesless vendor. B>) Sincerely, William Ernest Waites, Eyewriter "Words that make pictures." (c) ------- new post - same topic -------- From: Michael Martinez Subject: Linking > This link development myth has existed since I first > started designing sites back in 1995... The reason > I feel this myth continues to thrive is that people just > don't understand Web design and marketing. - Shari Thurow, LED 1919 While I agree with everything Shari wrote, I feel she didn't say enough about the myth of "keeping people on one's site". The concept of "losing visitors" or "sending visitors away" is extremely naive. People leave a Web site when they are good and ready, even if they have to close their browser to do so. Trapping people on your site or making it a dead end for information makes your site less attractive and less useful to your visitors. You WANT to add outbound links to your site so that people will come back (unless you are selling $100,000 items that people only purchase once in a lifetime). My position on reciprocal linking, I think, is well known. It has become so popular as to verge on abuse of both Webmasters like me and the search engines (which no longer pay the kind of attention to it that they once did). Sadly, there are too few well-informed voices on the subject of reciprocal linking these days. Yesterday's methodologies continue to be espoused by thousands of Webmasters across many fora -- and yet, they don't realize that they are largely wasting their time and effort in pursuing those reciprocal links. The search engines are aware of our various ranking strategies. They continually strive to counteract any manipulative or artificially inflative strategies. To stay on top, you need to stay ahead of everyone else. I'm working on my next set of strategies for marketing and placement. How about the rest of you? Michael Martinez http://www.michael-martinez.com/ ------- new post - same topic -------- From: Tom Aman Subject: Linking > I spend on the average US$5000 a month advertising both > online and in print media... WHY would I want to attract people > to my website and then, when they get there, send them to > some other website? - Robert Bass, LED 1917 Right off the top of my head I can give a couple of reasons for adding some links: 1. The entire WWW depends on links. Without links, there would be no Web. 2. The links should be to complementary sites, not competitors, and should provide a service to your visitors. They can actually bring traffic by making your site a resource that beading surfers visit first because they know they can find links to other stuff they need/are interested in on your site. A couple of comments about the Jewelx home page: In spite of Robert's comments about sending people to some other site, he has a link on the home page that take visitors to the Bead Bugle site and this link appears BEFORE the link to enter the Jewelx site. Would this link not be better placed elsewhere?? Tom Aman http://www.cyberspyder.com ==== BILLBOARD =================================== From: Sonia King Subject: Google Re Mark Mucke's call for help with Google rankings, Lorelle Smith wrote: > ... has your site truly been optimized properly? Let us > see the URL and judge for ourselves. Many of us on > this list will be glad to do free or very inexpensive site reviews. Oh my, Lorelle, if you want a guinea pig site for figuring out a change in Google rankings, please feel free to look at mine: http://www.mosaicworks.com I do my own site and try to implement as many suggestions from LED as I understand. But without any change, Last spring Google dropped my site from it's long time place as number 1 or 2 for the search 'mosaics' to 60 to 70. Over time it has risen back up to the mid-20's. But despite frequent updating, additional content pages, etc, it doesn't seem to get beyond those. Yet talking with other site owners in the cat (most are friends), my site gets substantially more traffic. Any thoughts or tips would be VERY appreciated. Best regards, Sonia King ------- new post - new topic ------- From: Nancy Schettler Subject: Copy theft / Copyscape Just a follow-up for LED Digest readers... a timely and happy ending! Andrew Falkingbridge posted a link to a www.copyscape.com , a website where you can search for instances of copy theft from your site. Having found a website full of blatant plagiarism of my site, I sent a very seriously worded warning letter to the site author / owner. Two days after its receipt, all that is left of the site is an "under construction" page. So the system has worked very well indeed! Nancy Schettler A Well Dressed Kitchen www.awelldressedkitchen.com ------- new post - new topic ------- From: Tom Anson Subject: CSS Hi LED-ers, I appreciate the suggestions given by one and all. One question: I've checked all over the the FireFox Developer ToolBar and can't find it anywhere. Can you offer a link? Thanks again for the help. Although we've chosen to go with a tables format for this site (which we will likely update when things are a little more settled), the information is helpful as we progress along with things. Tom Anson http://www.ansondigitalconcerns.com
-------------------------------------------------------
The LED Digest is sponsored by pair Networks:
pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains
© Copyright 1995-2004 Adam Audette. All Rights Reserved.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
"Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go."
- Oscar Wilde
|
