 Dear
Readers,
Today's LONG issue is the result of areader's question
about site submission. Robin
Nobles, SEO extraordinaire, provided the answers.
I suspect there are many of you who have questions
similar to his, so if
you're having trouble staying listed, be sure and read
through all the
questions and make sure Robin hasn't given a solution
to your specific
problem.
Notice how complete and complex Clint's question is
- that really helps those who are trying to help you.
If you submit
questions, make sure you fully explain your challenges.
Keep Clicking!
Garrett
 Search
Engines Dropped You? Robin Nobles to the Rescue!
Clint:
I was showing on the very first page in ALL MAJOR SE's
for a specific most commonly used search phrase for
computer hardware. On some SE's, the very FIRST hit
on a page. Mind you, this is even listed before the
huge multi-million dollar computer hardware websites!
I just have a small privately owned business, so you
can understand how important this was to me. To *MAINTAIN*
this standing, logic would dictate you resubmit every
few weeks or so.
Robin:
WRONG! That's "old" logic. "New"
logic is that if you have top rankings,
you do NOT touch your site or resubmit it. Period. You
leave your
site/pages alone if they're ranking well. Don't mess
with success.
"New" logic also says that if your page is
listed in the engine, you don't
resubmit it, even if the rankings aren't good. Instead,
you tweak the page,
and you work on building link popularity.
The bottom line is, if the page is in the index already,
there is NO reason to resubmit it.
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You didn't mention whether you're using pay inclusion
or free add URL. If you're using pay inclusion, which
I highly recommend, the spiders automatically crawl
your page within a specific time frame. You can make
changes and see how those changes have affected your
rankings in a few days to a week. But again, if your
pages are in the top 10, don't touch them! If your pages
slip in the rankings, give it a little time, and then
tweak your pages or work on off pages factors. Then,
let the spiders find the changes on their next spider
run. I would stay away from free add URL whenever possible.
One thing about the free add URL areas -- if you use
them, you're putting
yourself in same category as the spammers who submit
thousands and
thousands of spam pages a day. I've seen pages not make
it into the index
if submitted through free add URL.
It's best to get away from the spammers altogether
by using pay inclusion or letting the engines find the
pages on their own through their next spider run.
Clint:
If not, how can one maintain their great standing? What
about NEW websites that come along and may rank higher
than your site? How do you keep them from doing that?
I would think, by resubmitting. ??
Robin:
NO! Keep in mind that new sites will rarely be able
to compete against you.
Why? Because off page factors are so important these
days. For example, if
your pages have been in the index for two years, you've
probably built a
high link popularity for the pages/site. You have probably
built a ton of
excellent, FOCUSED content. A brand new site won't have
that link
popularity, and it will rarely have that content. It
won't have link text
pointing to it that describes the site using the important
keywords. YOU
will have a jump on them. :)
Of course, there are exceptions to every rule out there,
but the way to higher rankings is NOT resubmitting your
pages.
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Clint:
At any rate, after resubmitting a few weeks ago, I have
been DROPPED from some SE's, and on others am now FOUR
pages back! I'm totally devastated and beside myself
over this. The only main difference in submitting this
time, was a 'site map' being submitted instead of my
home page.
Robin:
If you submit a site map with links to your other pages
on that site map,
the engines will crawl through the links and <hopefully>
index them. But
again, why resubmit your site map if it's already in
the index? Just let
the engines find the site map on their next spider run.
Here's a rule I want you to follow: if your pages are
already in an
engine's index, DON'T resubmit it.
If it's a new page, you have several choices. You can
use pay inclusion, or
you can add a link to the page from a page that's already
in the index.
Your last choice would be to use free add URL.
Clint:
This was done because not all of the links at my site
are
linked to each page, so 'crawling' from the main URL
would
NOT work. This was just a blank page except for some
100+ links. It was just a simple page that listed every
link
at my site. It had no text on it other than the links,
but
had a title tag, descript tag, & keywords tag.
http://orpheuscomputing.com/site_map.html
Robin:
The engines, for the most part, would NOT like this
page. It's simply a page of links. AltaVista, in their
"spam guidelines," says that a page that's
just a list of links is considered spam. If you want
the site map to be successful, put CONTENT on it. Describe
each link using link text that describes the page. Put
some content at the top of the page or in various other
areas of the page. Don't ever just have a list of links.
Clint:
The other difference was adding this block of tags below:
<!doctype html public "-//w3c//dtd
html 4.0
transitional//en">
<meta name="classification" content="computer
hardware">
<meta name="robots" content="index,follow">
<meta name="revisit-after" content="7
days">
<meta name="MSSmartTagsPreventParsing"
content="TRUE">
<meta name="googlebot" content="index,follow">
So, it was either the 'site map' page, or one or more
of
these tags that destroyed things for me. Which could
have
done it, and why? (7 days has since been changed to
30).
Are any of those tags detrimental for SE placement?
Robin:
I wouldn't use any of them except the comment tag at
the very top. I believe in simplicity. Use only the
tags that are truly needed from a search engine optimization
point of view. Do you think an engine will review your
site and spider it if you tell it to come back in 7
days, or 30? Nope.
I would use the title tag, a description META tag,
and a keyword META tag.
That's it. Of course, depending on special circumstances,
you may use other
META tags, such as the <noindex> tag if you want
to keep spiders out of the
page. But as a general rule, only those three tags are
needed, and it
keeps the <head> section of your page much cleaner
and easier for the
spider to navigate. Plus, it pushes your important keyword-containing
content closer to the top of the page.
The doctype comment tag won't present any problems
and can be important
from a W3C point of view.
Clint:
Regarding a line from your newsletter, [quote]:
"When I launch a site, I arrange link partnerships
well in
advance, and we're usually getting crawled by all the
major search engines within a week of the links going
up, with multiple pages included at their next database
update."
I heard 2 days ago on TechTV (formally ZDNET), that
24 hr. a day computer network, that the major SE's PENALIZE
you for reciprocal links, and link partnerships.
Robin:
They don't penalize you for setting up strategic partnerships
with other sites and link back and forth with them.
If you join a link farm, which was popular a year or
so ago, they WILL penalize you. They will penalize you
if you participate in a program that "artificially"
boosts your link popularity. If you do it on your own,
like stated in the quote above, you'll be just fine.
And, it's VERY important to form those link partnerships,
both from a link popularity and a visibility point of
view.
Why did your rankings go down? It could be from a number
of reasons,
including a change in algorithm, over submission, the
page of just links,
etc. Don't beat yourself up about it. Instead, fix the
site map to make it
a more viable page for both the engines AND your users.
Site maps are
wonderful tools for users! Make it search engine AND
user friendly. Don't
resubmit your pages if they're already in the index.
If they get dropped
from the index, give it time to see if they'll get picked
up during the
engine's next spider run. If they don't, look closely
at your pages to make
sure you're doing nothing "wrong" and make
any needed changes to boost your
chances at better rankings. If you're using pay inclusion,
your changes
will get found by the engines. If you're not using pay
inclusion, let the
engines find the changes on their own.
Patience is a virtue when working with the search engines.
It's so easy to
want top results NOW, especially when you had them and
lost them. But, take
it easy and don't get in too big of a hurry to make
changes or resubmit
your pages if they fall from the index. Pages fall from
the indexes
constantly -- and most of the time, they get back in
on the next spider
run.
GOOD LUCK with your site!
Robin
Bless you for a reply to my dilemma.
-Clint
OrpheusComputing.com
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