[skalie]

I put some sites together a month ago, and they aren't showing up in the Google search engine. The meta-tags are in place and I have "subscribed them" to Google as well.

One possible fault I have made is that I am using a frameset with an empty frame on top, basically so that the URL stays the same. I then have a "inbetween page" for the main frame with has a javascript resolution checker as in......

Code:
<script language="javascript">
<!--
	if ((screen.width>=1024) && (screen.height>=768))
	{
	 window.location="main.php?res=1024";
	}
	else
	{
	 window.location="main.php?res=800";
	}
//-->
</script>

.......would the GoogleBots have gone to the site, read the Meta-tags and then been lost interest when there was no readily accessible relevant content?

[skalie]

Seems they would have http://www.searchengineethics.com/frames.htm

*begins throwing all the content and links between the "<no frames>" tags*

[m a d r a]

AFAIK google ranks pages not on the old-fashioned "metatags/keywords/body text" system, but rather ranks your pages by "importance" - by which they mean that the more external sites [of important ranking themselves] link to your site, the more important your site is perceived to be. this makes google rankings fairly representative of the "importance" of a particular site on the web at large and negates the use of keyword spamming and other underhand techniques to boost your ranking.

in other words, you can have all the meta-tags and keywords in the world sprinkled throughout your site, but if no-one else is linking to it, google will pretty much ignore you, or throw you in at position 4 635 247 of its search results.

having said all that, the *exact* methodology google uses is one of life's great mysteries so, as usual - YMMV.

[budster101]

Metatags mean NOTHING. All your metatags belong to us!

---

You gotsta pay da man!

[m a d r a]

actually, i've just noticed that this thread is called "the enigma that is goggle", so i apologise for straying off the subject of protective eye-wear

[budster101]

Oh, in that case.... Metatags mean NOTHING to goggles. Nothing at all.

[skalie]

So another strategy is called for.

I once got a site to number one in GoOgle by repeating the name of the site 1000 times pon the index page, it didn't last there long however.

Since I've got many domain names, would it worth setting up "phantom" pages that link to all the other sites even if the "phantom" page isn't directly reachable from the index page?

[m a d r a]

i think you need to get other external sites to link to yours.

strangely enough, when i view my stats, this forum is nearly always in the top couple of referrers, so i reckon linking to your site in your sig here and also hosting any images you post here on your own server space [as oposed to using flickr, or somesuch] is a pretty good way of generating those incoming links. repeat with every two-bit discussion forum you can sign up with and eventually google is bound to notice you.

[you dinnae think people keep relentlessly posting here for the quality of conversation, do you? ]

[skalie]

hhmmmm, considers a visit to the "rate my site thread".

Good tip on the image hosting, now I just have to convince my boss why entering Fark photoshop competitions counts as usefull work.

[m a d r a]

Originally Posted by skalie

....now I just have to convince my boss why entering Fark photoshop competitions counts as usefull work.

most days it's the *only* kind of work i get done - ah! the joys and pitfalls of being your own boss, but also being severely lacking in "work ethic"

[Chuckit]

Metatags have been abused so horrendously that even the search engines that still care about them don't care that much.

[moodymonster]

just find other sites around your site's interest area and try to add links to your site there, look for site directories. Also add into forums - google et al regularly update from forums because forums themselves are updated regularly.

As said by someone previously, google rates by the number of links to your site.

One site I've worked one is:

http://www.mobilegamefaqs.com/

They've used these methods to get their site going initially. They are now linked to by lots of game developers as well to advertise reviews of games (When the reviews are good )

If you search for terms around mobile game faqs or games featured on the site, MGFs is either at the top or very high on the list.

search for search engine optimisation for stuff on this.

also beware of people offering to put your site high on google's ratings [for money], its not that difficult and once you've got it going it kind of takes care of itself.

[skalie]

Thanks for the tips, Moody and all.

I should maybe explain exactly the situation I need to deal with......

I work for a guy who has a site (I'll name it the "mothership" for the purposes of this post) that works as a register for small businesses, those businesses pay to register, surfers can find those businesses through a search function on the "mothership".

He also makes websites for the businesses that want them. That's where I come in, I'm his "webdesign department". He also offers search engine placement for those sites.

Now what I have been doing is linking all the small websites to the "mothership" with a linked copywrite notice, so eventually the "mothership" should get a pretty high rating in Google. The mothership in return links to all the little sites.

The "mothership" looks after itself, but unfortunately it is the owners of the little sites who really need to be noticed by Google, to expand their customer base, yadda, yadda.... and to justify the expense of having a website in the first place.

It is the number of those little sites that rules out descrete spamming of pics on forums etc., as an option, all the optimisation has to be on the site itself. Which it appears leaves me pretty much optionless.

Some of the little sites I put together with, er, Flash, which are (were) totally reliant on their meta-tags to get themselves noticed on the web.

[skalie]

As an after thought................ hotlinking images, which is pretty much frowned upon for being the theft of bandwidth is actually doing a site a favour Google wise, or not?

[moodymonster]

The only way to do it really is to build up the number of links going in. They may have one link from the 'mothership', but to google that's not much.

As you say, there are lots of these sites so adding links into them all would be time consuming.

As to Flash, I did hear that google can now read them, but even if true its not really gonna help you.

The only option really is a bit time consuming and that's to create links elsewhere on the net linking to those sites. Or you could try to build up more links into the mothership. Directories and stuff aren't helpful really to humans, but google seems to like them, it can't hurt to put links wherever you can. As long as its not blatent if going on forums etc.

Once you get links in from big companies the number of hits jumps up like crazy - this page has had over 1000 hits in the last couple of days:

http://www.mobilegamefaqs.com/review...rig=rev&id=334

background 'ice' by yours truly

[moodymonster]

also if you had the mothership's link in your sig etc that would build up the number of links into it. And 'cause google looks at forums regularly should help to keep in high in the ratings + associate it with a wide variety of keywords.

If you promoted the mothership as much as you can, that would have a knockon effect for the other sites.

[skalie]

Originally Posted by moodymonster

also if you had the mothership's link in your sig etc that would build up the number of links into it. And 'cause google looks at forums regularly should help to keep in high in the ratings + associate it with a wide variety of keywords.

If you promoted the mothership as much as you can, that would have a knockon effect for the other sites.

Question, if I had a blatant spam link in my sig, named "blatent spam" of course, would it have to link to the index page of the mothership or would another page from the same url surfice to help the index page's ratings?

I say this because the mothership mainpage would be of zero interest to anyone posting at any of the forums I frequent and, er, is in Dutch.

I was thinking of putting together a flash game or a movie or something and spam that, as in mothership.com/somethinginteresting.php

[moodymonster]

it would help - but only if you had a link to the index page of the mothership on your flash game page.
That way google goes:

macnn > game page > mothership index > all sites

it also cuts down your work ie one site ass opposed to lots of sites (to SEO). If any of your mothership's clients want further SEO, then you can take up with them on a case by case basis.