google ranking

[gaybearheads]

Hi,

I have a question :)

I was ranking 1st page in google with the keyword "gaybear" and then today, I'm not even in the 10th page...

does someone have any clues? it's kind of weird!!!

my site is "gay bear heads (dot) com"

thanks!

Pat

[dzinerbear]

That often happens with new sites, you'll appear in the top of the rankings, and then, as things shift, you drop out of sight. Try not to worry about it, it's the natural ebb and flow of Google. Just keep bloggings and adding to your site and things should sort themselves out.

Michael

[gaybearheads]

Thanks a lot Micheal... Ill try to not cry and continue... :)

[Josh]

I was ranking 1st page in google with the keyword "gaybear" and then today, I'm not even in the 10th page...

Pat

That's the google dance. Just continue building links with your keyword in it. It's important that you don't just use your main keyword (gaybear) all the time. Use keyword combinations like 'gaybear videos', 'gaybear pics',... + continue adding content to your blog then it should come back in a couple of weeks.

[gaybearheads]

Thanks Josh, I will!

[gaydemon]

Google is fucked at the moment. Many SE people seems to think that something has gone very wrong back at Google HQ due to them trying to launch their new search.

However

If you have a fairly new site or considered to be new (major recent changes on your site), your site would be flagged as fresh and pushed towards the top. Given a boost so to speak. Once the freshness factor goes your send further back into the search results. But it will probably score higher at some point once Google thinks your site has settled and is reliable.

[gaybearheads]

Thanks for the info Bjorn. My site is 3 months old so maybe it's the freshness factor... We'll see!

[rawTOP]

I was ranking 1st page in google with the keyword "gaybear" and then today, I'm not even in the 10th page...

does someone have any clues? it's kind of weird!!!

There are two things that make you do well in Google - freshness and authority. You had freshness 'cause you were new. Now you don't. You'll get to the top again in the future depending on how well you do on being fresh or authoritative...

[tim]

By "authoritative" are you referring to many things or perhaps originality (as opposed to written content that is quite similar if not almost identical to another site, or to a number of sites doing the same)?


There are two things that make you do well in Google - freshness and authority. You had freshness 'cause you were new. Now you don't. You'll get to the top again in the future depending on how well you do on being fresh or authoritative...

[rawTOP]

By "authoritative" are you referring to many things or perhaps originality (as opposed to written content that is quite similar if not almost identical to another site, or to a number of sites doing the same)?

Authority is something very specific in the SEO world. It's a combination of how well you're trusted and how relevant your site is for that keyword. Google it to find a more detailed explanation.

[Squirt]

I don't have a lot of time right now but after a quick glance I can tell you what I see:

1) Your meta name keyword tag needs to BEGIN with Gay bear, gaybear - currently those keywords are farther down the list, giving them less relevance.

2) Your image alt tags are being used, but not to promote gay bear, only the sponsors and their model names. To fix this simply add Gay bear or Gay bears before the rest of the image alt text. i.e. gay bears - brief encounters.

3) Your text to image ratio is way off, you need a LOT more descriptive text that is keyword dense!

4) From what I saw, a lot of your links are outgoing to sponsors and not a lot of links go deeper to your own content, that's a negative. I don't have time to look through all 150 pages of your site so I could be wrong.

5) the search query string in your site URLs are not SEO friendly. You should use .htaccess, or other means, to convert those query strings to regular urls as regular urls are search engine friendly.

6) Since you have so many sponsor outbound links it would benefit you to mask those links using a "jump" cgi script or "outbound" php script.

Gotta go good luck! :clown:

[gaybearheads]

I don't have a lot of time right now but after a quick glance I can tell you what I see:

1) Your meta name keyword tag needs to BEGIN with Gay bear, gaybear - currently those keywords are farther down the list, giving them less relevance.

2) Your image alt tags are being used, but not to promote gay bear, only the sponsors and their model names. To fix this simply add Gay bear or Gay bears before the rest of the image alt text. i.e. gay bears - brief encounters.

3) Your text to image ratio is way off, you need a LOT more descriptive text that is keyword dense!

4) From what I saw, a lot of your links are outgoing to sponsors and not a lot of links go deeper to your own content, that's a negative. I don't have time to look through all 150 pages of your site so I could be wrong.

5) the search query string in your site URLs are not SEO friendly. You should use .htaccess, or other means, to convert those query strings to regular urls as regular urls are search engine friendly.

6) Since you have so many sponsor outbound links it would benefit you to mask those links using a "jump" cgi script or "outbound" php script.

Gotta go good luck! :clown:


WOW... thanks a lot for that... Ill try your suggestions. I'm kind of new as a webmaster so I'm learning new shit everyday!

thanks again!!!

Pat

[rawTOP]

1) Your meta name keyword tag needs to BEGIN with Gay bear, gaybear - currently those keywords are farther down the list, giving them less relevance.

Meta keywords? lol

[dzinerbear]

1) Your meta name keyword tag needs to BEGIN with Gay bear, gaybear - currently those keywords are farther down the list, giving them less relevance.

This is totally false, I'm afraid. Meta keywords are so irrelevant. I don't even think Google looks at them any more. I continue to add them to my sites, but I don't fret over them at all. Keywords are more important factors in your text, headings, ALT attributes, and linked text.

You were ranking for gaybear (one word) because your site is called GayBearHead.com/


2) Your image alt tags are being used, but not to promote gay bear, only the sponsors and their model names. To fix this simply add Gay bear or Gay bears before the rest of the image alt text. i.e. gay bears - brief encounters.

This would be keyword stuffing. If "gay bear" doesn't apply to the image concerned, I wouldn't use it. If every image on your site has an ALT attribute "gay bear" I would think that would raise more red flags. ALTs are important in terms of getting your images to show up when people are searching for images in Google. So if you picture is of a hairy man with a moustache, then "Hairy Man Moustache" would probably be more effective than "Gaybear Hairy Man Moustache."

Remember, the purpose of the ALT attritute is really to signal to people with images turned off or visually impaired people what the image is all about.


3) Your text to image ratio is way off, you need a LOT more descriptive text that is keyword dense!

Just read an article that talked about the whole keyword density thing as being something that's going the way of the meta keyword tag. There once was a school of thought that there was some magical percentage, i.e. 3% keyword density that would zoom you to the top of results. But search engines are also getting smarter. They're not just considering the presence of your main keyword on the page, but other words, too. So, if you're writing a piece about Barak Obama, it's reasonable to assume that other words would be present on the page, like: White House, president, United States, etc.

I agree that a bit more text might help improve your rankings.

Also, are you just taking the text that the sponsors provide with your content? If so, that's going to be duplicate text used on possibly hundreds of pages across the Web. Search engines like original content.



4) From what I saw, a lot of your links are outgoing to sponsors and not a lot of links go deeper to your own content, that's a negative. I don't have time to look through all 150 ages of your site so I could be wrong.

This is a good point. If you have a model appearing in one blog, try linking to another blog on your site. That'll help with internal links and give your pages more relevance.


5) the search query string in your site URLs are not SEO friendly. You should use .htaccess, or other means, to convert those query strings to regular urls as regular urls are search engine friendly.

You are also linking the title of each post to the sponsor, normally one links those to an actually permanent link on your site.

You can change the way post URLs appear on your site. I can help you with that, you know where to find me.

Michael

[gaybearheads]

It's like I'm getting a super course on "how to blog right"... I'm so glad you all help me :)

Pat

[Squirt]

It's like I'm getting a super course on "how to blog right"... I'm so glad you all help me :)

Pat

Your welcome! The best place to start your SEO / SEM research would be Webmaster World (http://www.webmasterworld.com/sem_seo_research/) where there is a lot of technical accurate discussion covering this important topic. You wont see any snarky back and forth stuff or get general marginal advice.. you'll get the real nuts and bolts of what you need to know in spades. Good luck! :clown: