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Using My Software to Determine Why a Site Ranks Poorly in Google

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July 14, 2008

Using My Software to Determine Why a Site Ranks Poorly in GoogleA reader left a couple of comments/questions to two of my Search Engine Optimization (SEO) articles over the weekend.

One was left to my post Don't Give a Hoot about Google Page Rank, commenting about Google Page Rank, Keyword Optimization Strategies, and Link Popularity as they relate to a site his father has that's not ranking too well for the keyword he wants it to.

His other comment was left to my post Search Engine Ranking Factors and is a little more mathematically oriented, asking about my opinion of Keyword Optimization and is it a multiplier or additive in the search engines.

So, Devin T.... thanks for the comments!

If you've read my more recent post dealing with SEO (which Devin has since he left his comments there), then you know that I've created a research and tracking tool that I use to help me with my own SEO. You also know that I'm working on a finished version of this tool to be released this summer as a product. What you may not know, is that if you're on my email subscription list, you'll have the opportunity to purchase this tool at a substantial discount a day or so before it's released: so, sign up to my subscription list using the form in the top right of this blog, or, at the end of each article.

I used this tool to do some analysis of the site Devin referred to: www.TheMonadnock.com to see if I could determine why it is not ranking well for the keyword monadnock, and what I think he can do to improve it. In case you didn't read his comments, Monadnock is a community or region in the state of New Hampshire.

Before I get too far into this, I want to be sure that I explain that in my post Don't Give a Hoot about Google Page Rank, I'm referring to your own Google PR, not the sites you get links from. The article in a nutshell says don't worry about trying to get your site's Google PR up, it's not all that important to ranking well in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). SERPs are the pages that you get back listing results when you perform a search. However, the Google PR of pages that link TO you can have a dramatic effect on your SERP ranking.

Here's what my tool tells me about Devin's site:

Keyword Analysis for:
themonadnock.com 7/14/2008 11:13:35 AM
monadnock: T=52 H=8 B=44

Ranking for search term "monadnock":
Google: n/a - didn't register
Yahoo: 59
MSN: 108

Stats for www.TheMonadnock.com
Google PR: 3
Google Backlinks: 1
Yahoo Backlinks: 69
Alexa Ranking: 505,229
Alexa Backlinks: 1

Top Site Analysis for Top 7 Sites in Google for Keyword: monadnock, 7/14/2008 11:17:27 AM
(note: my software returns a Top 20 analysis, but I only included the top 7 here)
1: www.police-batons.com: T=10 H=5 B=5
2: www.mpm.com: T=6 H=1 B=5
3: www.monadnock.net: T=6 H=1 B=5
4: www.monadnock.com: T=1 H=1 B=0
5: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monadnock: T=29 H=0 B=29
6: www.qcc.mass.edu/brink/qcc/monadtr.html: T=18 H=1 B=17
7: www.monadnockspeedway.com: T=6 H=1 B=5

Google PR:
www.police-batons.com: 0
www.mpm.com: 5
www.monadnock.net: 5
www.monadnock.com: 3
en.wikipedia.org: 9
www.qcc.mass.edu: 5
www.monadnockspeedway.com: 4

Google Back Link Count:
www.police-batons.com: 0
www.mpm.com: 58
www.monadnock.net: 25
www.monadnock.com: 3
en.wikipedia.org: 377000
www.qcc.mass.edu: 50
www.monadnockspeedway.com: 8

Yahoo! Back Link Count:
www.police-batons.com: 38
www.mpm.com: 653
www.monadnock.net: 451
www.monadnock.com: 102
en.wikipedia.org: 2649210
www.qcc.mass.edu: 794
www.monadnockspeedway.com: 2256

Alexa Ranking & Count:
www.police-batons.com: r=9,334,741 l=7
www.mpm.com: r=1,849,998 l=20
www.monadnock.net: r=1,368,415 l=78
www.monadnock.com: r=3,879,134 l=11
en.wikipedia.org: r=8 l=110,729
www.qcc.mass.edu: r=20,455 l=80
www.monadnockspeedway.com: r=867,248 l=18

Right off the bat, I'm going to dismiss Devin's statement that the Google PR of his site is one of the issues, because there is another PR3 site in the top 7, and the #1 site is a PR0 site.

Keyword Count
What else do I see in these numbers? The keyword count is rather high at:

Keyword Analysis for:
themonadnock.com 7/14/2008 11:13:35 AM
monadnock: T=52 H=8 B=44

This shows 52 occurrences of monadnock, 8 in the head section and 44 in the body section. While this may not be a problem, it's drastically more than the top 7 sites. Yahoo likes this type of thing, which explains, or partly explains why he ranks higher in Yahoo. However Google probably see this as "Keyword Stuffing". I would attempt to reduce the number of times the keyword is used. But do it naturally. Don't delete it just to delete it. Your number one priority is to people, real humans, reading the site. If you can remove occurrences of the keyword and have easy to read sentences that make sense then do so, otherwise leave it alone.

Meta Data
Meta data is located in the head section of the html code and contains data that is not displayed on the page, things like page title, description, keyword, etc. The title on his page is very good; it's short and contains the keyword he is looking to optimize on. The description is also very good, again concise and containing the keyword(s). But, the keyword meta data is way too long. Some search engines don't use this field anymore, but, that does not mean that they don't read it and make some judgment calls like: "whoa dude, that's stuffed full".

Backlinks
Looking at the backlink counts reveals what is probably the main issue: lack of focused links. The data does not actually show lack of focus, just a lack of links. By focus, I mean what's in the anchor text (text that you actually click on) of the links pointing to the site. You want a lot of links pointing to your site that contain the keyword(s) you want to optimize for in the anchor text. How do you get these types of links? If you have a quality site, you'll get some links naturally over time as people find your site and link to you. You can write and submit articles to articles directories and include a link to your site in the "about the author" resource box that is usually at the end of articles, and finally (and fastest) you can use a service such as 3WayLinks that I highly recommend. I talk about 3WayLinks in an SEO Interview I did recently... more on that below.

Misc.
I don't have any data to back this up, but I would move the signup section off of the home page and have it on a separate page. You could list the membership level prices on the home page and link to a "checkout" page. From a layout point of view, I don't like it in the middle of the home page, but from a SEO standpoint I think those Paypal links may have an effect. But again, it's only a hunch; I have no data to back that up.

Multiplier vs. Additive
Is "Keyword Optimization" a multiplier or additive in the search engines? I don't know, probably additive. You can rank well for a term and not even have that term anywhere on your page (I talk about this in the Search Engine Ranking Factors post). But, overuse it and you will drop in ranking (at least on Google).

Summary:
Robert Phillips at CyberCashology interviewed me recently about SEO and you can purchase that interview off of his site here: Cutting Through the SEO Hype. It's a good resource, we talk for almost two hours on how I got this site ranking #1 for months (and at lease on the 1st page other times), and how I helped him with his SEO for his blog.

Devin,
I just gave you about $1000 (probably much more) worth of advice! Use it well! I didn't cover everything, but enough to make a difference.

Until next time,
Fred

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Posted by Fred on July 14, 2008 | Printer-Friendly

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  Comments:
  1. From: Steven Lohrenz

    Any planned dates? I'm starting to develop my own solutions for the capabilities you seem to have in your tool... And I don't like doing the work! Especially, when I know there's going to be something much better soon.

    Posted by Steven Lohrenz on July 14, 2008 3:31 PM

  2. From Fred...

    Sometime in August...

    Posted by Fred Black on July 14, 2008 3:36 PM

  3. From: Heidi Ross

    I love articles like the above. A person can learn so much from case studies and analysis of others sites.

    Heidi

    Posted by Heidi Ross on July 14, 2008 11:18 PM

  4. From: Ian Brodie | Professional Services Sales

    Hi Fred - interesting and informative post.

    www.police-batons.com doesn't have a lot of backlinks - but it has some good ones. For example it is one of only two external lnks from a PR2 french site on training for baton use. It is one of only 9 external links from a PR3 page from Hamilton police - etc. etc.

    In this case it looks like quality beats quantity.

    Rgds

    Ian

    Posted by Ian Brodie | Professional Services Sales on July 17, 2008 4:57 PM

  5. From: Steven Fu - Online Business Owner

    Hi Fred, I just happened to stumble upon your blog. Very informative and helpful. I agree with Heidi, case studies are the best way to learn. Thanks

    Posted by Steven Fu - Online Business Owner on July 21, 2008 1:46 AM

  6. From: Websites For Sale

    Great SEO tips - checking into the 3 way linking deal. Wondering how sites with low PR and low or no backlinks can out rank my site too?
    Thanks for turning off the no follow on the blog as well!

    Posted by Websites For Sale on July 30, 2008 1:07 AM

  7. From: Mike Mason

    Wow, that is some great information! You are right that you just gave away about $1000 worth of information and I am very grateful.

    I am fairly new to internet marketing and have trouble getting my sites to rank high in the SERPS. A case study like this is a lot of help for me. I've tried searching for certain keywords before and examined the top 5 sites. They really didn't have any similarites (PR, KW density, or backlink wise) so I didn't know what to do. Anyway, this post really helped. Thanks, and take care!

    Posted by Mike Mason on August 17, 2008 3:07 PM

  8. From: The Glowhouse

    Hi, I'm always reading up on this kind of stuff! I do wonder though on how severe it can be for your web site links profile, if you get too many inbound links using the same anchor text? Are there any case studies on this where it causes more harm than good? I think I need to vary my anchor text links!

    Posted by The Glowhouse on June 13, 2009 8:19 PM

  9. From: Dr Robert Doebler

    Great advice indeed. I would like to get hold of that tool which shows why a site is not ranking very well. It can really help a lot of bloggers and website owners out there.

    Posted by Dr Robert Doebler on October 12, 2011 5:47 AM

 


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