Q and A: Why does my website not rank high on search engines?

QuestionDear Kalena…

Does the Google sandbox exist?

Hi, my name is Cameron and I run I Want a Credit Card, an Australian credit card review site. I think I’m doing everything I should be to get good Google traffic. I have loads of unique content and lots of incoming links (some from PR7 and PR8 sites).

I get about 20-30 Google visitors per day, mostly from very specific keywords. I don’t show up anywhere in the first 300 results for credit card’ or ‘credit cards’ on Google Australia, which is frustrating because I think my site is a good resource (certainly more relevant than some of the sites in the first few pages of results).

I’ve read countless articles on optimizing my site for search engine traffic and I’ve tried to follow all the appropriate principles (SEO-friendly URLs etc). My site doesn’t contain any content which may cause it to be penalized (gambling, porn etc) and I have no outbound links to bad or PR0 sites. Google Webmaster tools reports no problems. What am I doing wrong?

Cameron

Dear Cameron

The existence of Google Sandbox, the (ageing) filter put in place by Google spam team to fight web spam, is debatable. While it did exist in the past, many SEO professionals now believe that it no longer exists but Rand Fishkin wrote a post which proves otherwise. I believe that you are trying to hint at the fact that the website’s inability to rank for the keyword ‘credit card’ or ‘credit cards’ is because of Google Sandbox effect. However, a brief analysis of the website did not show any potential signs of the ageing filter playing a role in the website not being able to rank for these keywords.

Since you have been reading around the subject, I am sure that you would have come across various resources detailing search engine ranking factors. The important thing to remember here is that these factors change with time; new factors get added, some lose their sheen while others gain prominence. With this background knowledge, I would like to give you some potential reasons for low ranking and suggest a better approach.

While analyzing your website, I could spot a couple of flaws which will hurt its potential to rank high on search engines. Many of the web pages seem to be using the same (duplicate) ‘title’ which is not healthy. Page title is one of the most important on-page ranking factors and it is imperative that each webpage has a unique title, which is in sync with the keywords being targeted for that particular page. In addition to this, the website’s back link profile looks very unnatural. While building links, it is essential that you rotate anchor texts and use semantic variations of the targeted keywords. It has to be a proper mix and I am afraid to say that it is not at the moment because more than 95% of the links have ‘credit card(s)’ as the anchor text. Also, majority of the links come from a handful of websites. The existing back link profile is bound to raise red flags and many links will be potentially devalued or already are by search engines.

Ranking for competitive terms such as ‘credit card’ or credit cards’ will require concerted efforts for a prolonged period of time. It is pertinent to add that domain authority, trustworthiness and age play a crucial role in ranking for competitive terms; something that cannot be built overnight and will come with time. I would therefore recommend that you adopt a slightly different approach.

You can begin with targeting less competitive keywords like ‘credit card comparison’, ‘compare credit cards’, ‘low interest credit cards’, ‘student credit cards’, ‘low rate credit card’, etc. Keywords which are 3-5 words long are not only easier to rank for as compared to generic term like ‘credit cards’, but also are more likely to convert better. The best part of this whole approach is the fact that as you work towards ranking for less competitive but better converting keywords, you gain significant link equity and domain trust. This in turn will help you rank for more competitive and generic keyword like credit card. By adopting this approach you would accomplish your end goal and in the process achieve high rankings for a wider keyword portfolio.

I hope this helps.

Saurav.

Further reading: Why it Makes Sense to Target Longtail Keywords First

Hats off to our latest Search Engine College Graduates

On behalf of the tutors and staff at Search Engine College, I’d like to offer congratulations to our most recent graduates:

Search Engine Optimization 101

  • Wiep Knol
  • Natalie Gschwandtner
  • Dianna Wages
  • Lea Dutton
  • Steven Morris
  • Harrison Cheung
  • Courtney Gager
  • Linda Cao
  • Mary Jane Stern
  • Alessander Firmino
  • Rob Gibbons
  • Frank Freund
  • Purna Virji
  • Deborah Naugle
  • Gary Gorelik
  • Peter Newsome
  • Mohammed El Hakawati
  • Jennifer Shaw
  • David Matley
  • Vanessa Kilgore
  • Bill Montaruli
  • Absalom Oliver
  • Kevin Brandt
  • Kyle Cunningham
  • Jayne Henry
  • Myles Calvert


Search Engine Optimization 201

  • Wiep Knol
  • Dianna Wages
  • Courtney Gager
  • Linda Cao
  • Adrian Schaal
  • Alessander Firmino
  • Purna Virji
  • Barbara Stroup
  • Peter Newsome
  • Harrison Cheung
  • Rob Gibbons
  • Frank Freund
  • Deborah Naugle
  • Rebecca Smith
  • Lea Dutton
  • Kevin Brandt
  • Kyle Cunningham
  • Myles Calvert


Pay Per Click Advertising 101

  • Purna Virji
  • Willy Yao
  • Gary Gorelik
  • Jennifer Shaw
  • Leon Granger
  • Frank Freund
  • Kyle Cunningham


Pay Per Click Advertising 201

  • Kasi Ehlers
  • Cheryl Ambruch
  • Anh Nguyen
  • Cy Khormaee
  • Courtney Gager
  • Rabeyya Imran
  • Lisa Gudmundson
  • Brant Reed
  • Purna Virji
  • Barbara Stroup
  • Linda Cao
  • Willy Yao
  • Jennifer Shaw
  • Kevin Brandt
  • Kyle Cunningham
  • Frank Freund

Web Site Copywriting 101

  • Kasi Ehlers
  • Purna Virji
  • Cheryl Ambruch
  • Harrison Cheung
  • Kyle Cunningham


Web Site Usability 101

  • Rabeyya Imran
  • Barbara Stroup


Article Marketing & Distribution 101

  • Willy Yao

Link Building 101

  • Adrian Schaal

Certified Search Engine Optimizer

  • Adrian Schaal
  • Linda Cao
  • Harrison Cheung

Certified Pay Per Click Marketer

  • Willy Yao
  • Jennifer Shaw

Certified Search Engine Marketer

  • Kasi Ehlers
  • Cy Khormaee
  • Courtney Gager
  • Rabeyya Imran
  • Purna Virji
  • Cheryl Ambruch
  • Barbara Stroup
  • Kyle Cunningham

Well done everyone! Please contact your tutor if you haven’t yet received your hard copy certificate, Status Page or certification seal.

Also, don’t forget to join the Search Engine College Alumni on Facebook and follow our Twitter profile @secollege for College announcements such as lesson updates, press releases, new courses, events and milestones.

Off Duty Until Thursday

G’day readers

Just a short note to say I am currently on leave in Australia and so won’t be making any blog posts until next Thursday 23rd July.

I’ll only have sporadic Internet access too so if you’ve sent me an email or uploaded an assignment to grade, please note that it may take me a bit longer to respond.

Thanks for your patience and I’ll leave you in the capable hands of my Guest Bloggers Peter, Andy and Saurav.

Catch you on Thursday!

Q and A: Do search engines index Free sites?

Question

Kalena,

I’ve heard that the search engines won’t index free sites, such as verizon.net. Is that true? Is there any way to encourage them to index those sites?

Regards, Jan

Dear Jan

I’m not exactly sure what you mean by “free sites” but the site you’ve mentioned www.verizon.net is certainly indexed by Google (In fact it currently has 124,000 pages indexed – see this Google Search)

The search engines will try to index just about all pages on all sites – with a few exceptions. The only pages that are really excluded from indexing are ones that are not accessible to the search spiders (because they are in members-only or password protected areas), or the site owner has specifically requested pages or sections not be indexed (through the use of robots.txt or header tags for example). Typically all sites and pages would be indexed – spammy and even some penalised sites would still be indexed – but they may not show up well (or at all) for most search results.

Indexing vs Ranking

I should also highlight and important difference between indexing and ranking. Getting a site indexed is relatively easy – it is simply a matter of notifiying a search engine of the site’s existence .. and waiting. Just because a site does not appear on page 1 .. or page 5.. or even page 30 of the search results, doesn’t necessarily mean that it has not been indexed.

The easiest way to see how well a particular site has been indexed is to use the “site:” operator in your search query. If you enter the query site:yourdomain.com as a Gooqle query, it will return a list of all the pages currently indexed by Google on the yourdomain.com website.

Achieving good rankings for a site – is a very different matter – one of the primary goals of SEO is to improve the rankings of indexed pages.

As far as “encouraging” search engines to index a site ? The best way for a spider to find your site is for it to follow links form other sites. The more links to your site from other related sites, the faster your site will be indexed – and the better it will rank. The best way to get links to your site is to provide good quality, unique and useful content, and the best way to have search engines return to your site regularly to re-crawl and index your pages is to regularly, change, update, expand, enhance and develop your content.

Regards,

Andy Henderson
WebConsulting Optimisation and Design (Brisbane)

Search Light Newsletter July Edition

Search LightIf you’re not a regular subscriber, you might have overlooked the fact that we published an issue of the Search Light newsletter this week. That’s why I’m here to remind you!

In this issue, we introduce you to our newest guest bloggers Peter, Andy and Saurav and include some of the more interesting FAQs they’ve answered in this blog. The newsletter also includes an article about the difference between article marketing and guest blogging written by copywriting extraordinaire Karon Thackston.

If you’re not yet a subscriber (you’re in big trouble!) catch it here and then quickly go and subscribe before I find out.