boe_d
Joined: Eons Ago
# Posts: 110
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Posted: 2008-Jul-31 01:28
Hello,
I know very little about website development but created something that pretty much works for me as a website but it wasn't being searched by google often even though I'd update my content. I'd check this by going to google advanced search and set the date for pretty recent. So I had an acquantance of mine who is a very good developer look at my page. He said I made a few mistakes, cleaned it up but now google hasn't seemed to hit my page in about 6 months (not the effect I was going for  ).
MS and Yahoo are hitting my site but I really care about google. I have robots.txt, sitemap.xml, sitemap.xml.gz, urlist.txt, urlist.txt.gz and a key file at the root of my home directory. I wasn't getting hit so I created an index.htm as well as an index.html file (even though as far as I know you really only need one. I'm making no progress in figuring it out.
I'd be happy to send my index file or my sitemap file to anyone who is interested in looking. Feel free to PM me as I'm not sure if I should post a link to my url here.
Thanks in advance for your help!
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mj1256
Staff
Joined: Jun 05, 2006
# Posts: 981
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Posted: 2008-Jul-31 03:47
yeah, what you did is very spammy and google is not going to go for this at all.
your site is built in flash, search engines need text to index your site.
so...I see that you created several index files with lots of meta tags and spammy content that just redirect to the flash presentation to try to get a ranking. this approach has gotten your site penalized for sure. YOu over did the tags and your content is full of keyword stuffing. this would have been great in 1998.
damage is done, so your going to have to take drastic measures to fix it.
you also have a flash intro page which although is nicely done, but it serves no purpose to the search engines or the user.
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boe_d
Joined: Eons Ago
# Posts: 110
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Posted: 2008-Jul-31 09:17
Thanks for taking the time to look. Sorry for being a newbie to SEO stuff but can you tell me what I need to do to make it less spammy? Are you saying I should only have the metatags in my root index file? Any details you can give me would be greatly apppreciated!
Also any details on the drastic measures you mention would be very helpful.
If I correct the things that are wrong with the site - is there any procedure for getting the penalization removed?
Thanks again.
[ Message was edited by: boe_d 07/31/2008 01:27 am ]
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mj1256
Staff
Joined: Jun 05, 2006
# Posts: 981
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Posted: 2008-Jul-31 15:40
this is what I would do because I don't play games or take risks, good domain names are too hard to come by, others may have other suggestions.
make a new site in html or PHP or better yet a cms system. use flash only to feature something and have it as no more than 10% of the site. (use flash as frosting, not the cake.) SE's like content (text) that they can read, they can't read flash.
I would change my robots file so it would not be crawled any more. (actually, google will not delete it, it just won't be active)
then once the new site is ready and optimized, I would let the spiders crawl it again. The properly optimized site should just rerank itself without penalties on its own.
If it doesn't get included and re ranked I would contact google.
or...
seeing your not ranked well anyway, I would get a new domain and build a new site and once I let the spiders get it, I would delete the old site and do a redirect to the new site from the old domain.
and no welcome or intro page or music, thats 1998, have your users and spiders come directly into your site.
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boe_d
Joined: Eons Ago
# Posts: 110
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Posted: 2008-Jul-31 16:00
mj1256, thanks so much for your time!
I took out the intro page - as per your suggeston.
Since it will take me a very long time to create the new site as I am not a web developer, can you help me with the immediate solution - I want to make sure I've got a plan of attack today.
1 - only have my keywords and content metatags in my index page or keep them all in my index page and some in my referral/sub index pages but remove particular ones in my sub pages?
<META NAME="author"
<META NAME="subject"
<META NAME="Description"
<META NAME="Classification"
<META NAME="Keywords"
<META NAME="Geography"
<META NAME="Language"
<META HTTP-EQUIV="Expires"
<META NAME="Designer"
<META NAME="Publisher" CONTENT
<META NAME="Revisit-After"
<META NAME="distribution"
<META NAME="city"
<META NAME="country"
<meta name="robots"
<meta name="content"
2. Delete my robots.txt file?
3. Is the the <meta name="content" - you referenced in your first suggestion about key word stuffing or do you mean all of the contents of all the metatags?
4. ??
5. Long term plan - I can put up a redirect page. Do I need any of the metatags at all in my redirect or just - an index file with the one line - <meta HTTP-EQUIV="REFRESH" content="0; url=http://www.yourdomain.com/index.html"> ?
Thanks again for teaching me the error of my ways!
[ Message was edited by: boe_d 07/31/2008 09:00 am ]
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mj1256
Staff
Joined: Jun 05, 2006
# Posts: 981
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Posted: 2008-Jul-31 16:45
I'm not teaching, just making suggestions, everyone here has a different approach.
somehow people have the idea that all of this can be learned in one easy 2 minute lesson. it cannot, it takes years of experience, and we are not going to solve yur issues in forum postings
If I were you I would hire someone to straighten this all out.
don't redirect anything yet. that only comes after you have a new site on the new domain
you only need the description, keyword, and robots meta tag
but this change will have no effect at this point.
never ever do this
<meta HTTP-EQUIV="REFRESH" content="0; url=http://www.yourdomain.com/index.html"> ?
I was referring to a server side redirect
the keyword stuffing is within your index page content, it is all bad.
There is no band aid, no quick fix, no get results today effort that can be done.
I would do a complete redo.
don't do anything until you have a new site
[ Message was edited by: mj1256 07/31/2008 05:37 pm ]
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boe_d
Joined: Eons Ago
# Posts: 110
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Posted: 2008-Jul-31 17:11
Thanks
you only need the description, keyword, and robots meta tag - is that in the the main index or the sub indexes?
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freeflyer
Joined: Aug 06, 2007
# Posts: 211
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Posted: 2008-Jul-31 17:23
forget talking about index's... you should be thinking pages.
It seems your lack of understanding may require answers which go beyond forum posts and its too much go into . I'd take MJ's advice and hire someone.
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boe_d
Joined: Eons Ago
# Posts: 110
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Posted: 2008-Jul-31 17:31
OK - can anyone tell me how much I can expect to pay if I just keep my web site content the same but get my metatags fixed and a redirect to a new location or whatever pages/terms you prefer to use? I understand that I'd get more searching done if I had an all html page or mostly html with very little flash but surely I can get searched on my first page that isn't flash?
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mj1256
Staff
Joined: Jun 05, 2006
# Posts: 981
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Posted: 2008-Jul-31 17:45
thats not what you need to do
it isn't meta tags that get you ranked, they are ignored by the search engines except when used wrong. then they penalize you
redirect to what, the old site on a new domain, that will only destroy the new domain also
but surely I can get searched on my first page that isn't flash
no, not enough content. its all the pages of contetn on your site working together.
i see your desperation, but your not going to fix this in a second and the more you post the more you show you don't understand. If you want a quick fix you need to hire as you do not have time to learn.
as for price, you already spent $200 and that got your site in trouble, so it isn't price, it finding someone with the right skill level. As a general rule, with anything, you get what you pay for. Cheap only means cheap, not good.
I would use all of your current content
[ Message was edited by: mj1256 07/31/2008 10:09 am ]
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mj1256
Staff
Joined: Jun 05, 2006
# Posts: 981
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Posted: 2008-Jul-31 19:38
so if the strategy is to use the old static site, you have more issues as it uses frames, search engines can't get framed sites properly.
there are no quick fixes, you need a new site.
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g1smd
Staff
Joined: Jul 28, 2002
# Posts: 10465
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Posted: 2008-Jul-31 20:41
The meta refresh is a bad idea. You need a proper 301 redirect.
Never mention the index file filename in any link or any redirect.
Link to the URL ending in a trailing "/"/ only.
The only meta tags you need are those for Content-Encoding, Language, and Description.
You also need a unique title tag per page.
There is much to do.
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boe_d
Joined: Eons Ago
# Posts: 110
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Posted: 2008-Jul-31 22:32
Thanks - I see what you mean by title tag.
"The meta refresh is a bad idea. You need a proper 301 redirect." I did a redirect from my hosting company instead of using an html file to do it. While I may end up having someone do the work for me I'd still like to learn - is that what you are suggesting or creating an html file for the redirect?
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freeflyer
Joined: Aug 06, 2007
# Posts: 211
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Posted: 2008-Jul-31 23:09
if its an apache server the redirect is done via an .htaccess file in your root (homepage) folder . Sometimes your hosts wont do it this way so you need to do it yourself to make sure.
If its a windows server you do it via IIS.
Having looked at your site though, i agree with the others. You need a new site, as trying to fix this one is time consuming , and you'll still have a bad site at the end of it. Considering your market sector you may have to resign yourself to the fact that you need a good site, and your current one simply doesnt reflect a good IT company.. sorry.
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mj1256
Staff
Joined: Jun 05, 2006
# Posts: 981
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Posted: 2008-Jul-31 23:30
"The meta refresh is a bad idea. You need a proper 301 redirect." I did a redirect from my hosting company instead of using an html file to do it. While I may end up having someone do the work for me I'd still like to learn - is that what you are suggesting or creating an html file for the redirect?
no, hopefully your on an apache server in which case this is done in the .htaccess file. The redirect would happen before anything on your website is indexed.
freeflyer, thanks for backing me up on this, I've been discussing redoing the site for him. The ball is in his court.
[ Message was edited by: mj1256 07/31/2008 05:37 pm ]
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boe_d
Joined: Eons Ago
# Posts: 110
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Posted: 2008-Jul-31 23:43
Thanks - I'll talk to a couple of people about redesigning my site.
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boe_d
Joined: Eons Ago
# Posts: 110
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Posted: 2008-Sep-02 16:25
OK, I took everyone's advice and had someone else redo my webpage. I'm looking forward to when google has really indexed my webpage.
Thanks everyone for the advice.
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freeflyer
Joined: Aug 06, 2007
# Posts: 211
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Posted: 2008-Sep-03 10:33
blimey talk about going from extreme to the other much better, huge content, easy to get lost maybe as a visitor, but a massive improvement.
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boe_d
Joined: Eons Ago
# Posts: 110
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Posted: 2008-Sep-03 16:02
Thanks Freeflyer, the general content and categories are nearly the same as my old flash and static sites but an SEO expert here did a great job of designing the site for me so it would look far more polished than my old web sites. The only major difference in content is a news section to help my clients keep on any computer industry news that would probably be of interest to the bulk of my clients.
[ Message was edited by: boe_d 09/03/2008 08:21 am ]
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