Some
webmasters face the problem that
their good web site rankings have
been dropped or that their web
pages have not been listed at
all. If your web site rankings
have been dropped, you can do
the following:
1. On-site optimization
factors you should check
It is very important that
your web pages are spam free.
Maybe you have changed something
on your pages that search
engines might consider spam.
Even if you didn't want to
cheat, search engines might
get the impression if you
use certain elements on your
web pages.
Make sure that your web site
doesn't use keyword stuffing,
hidden text, cloaking or redirections.
If you use any of them, search
engine might tag your web
site as a spam site. In that
case, all other optimization
efforts are pointless.
If you have new web pages
that aren't listed, make sure
that your web pages have enough
text. Search engines need
text to index web pages. Don't
use frames because some search
engines won't
index your pages then.
Even Google has difficulty
to index dynamically created
pages. If you must use dynamically
created pages and if your
web page URLs contain questions
marks, the & symbol and
other special characters,
consider rewriting your URLs
so that your pages look like
static pages (that's the way
Amazon does it). Your webmaster
can help you to do
this. Dynamically created
pages are often the reason
for bad rankings.
Make sure that your robots.txt file
allows search engines to index
your web site. A broken robots.txt
file can send search engine
spiders away.
It's also important that
you have plain text links
on your web pages. If you
only use image or JavaScript
links on your pages, chances
are that search engine spiders
cannot follow the links so
that it looks as if your web
site consisted of only one
page. Plain text links help
search engines to spider your
site.
Search engines analyze many
different elements of a web
page when they determine the
ranking of a page. It's important
that you check
all of these elements.
You should also make sure
that your web pages have valid HTML
code. While most HTML errors
don't cause problems, some
of them can prevent search
engine spiders from indexing
your site.
2. Off-site optimization
factors you should check
The number and the type of
web sites that link to your
site is very important. If
you want to get high search
engine rankings, try to get
as many links from related
web sites as possible. It's
not only important that many
other web sites link to yours.
It's also important that the
links are from related sites
and that the link texts contain
keywords that are related
to the keywords for which
you want to have high search
engine rankings.
If you did have good rankings
that suddenly dropped and
none of the on-site factors
mentioned above apply to your
site then it is very likely
that the search engine has
re-evaluated the links to
your site. In that case, the
search engine either thinks
that the links to your site
are not from related sites
or other web sites now have
better links than you so that
they are listed higher.
Note that the other web sites
needn't have more links than
you. They just need better
links that are related to
the keyword for which you
want to have high rankings.
In that case, you should try
to get
new links from related
sites that contain your keyword.
3. General things that can
influence your rankings
Make sure that your web server
is fast and reliable. If your
web server doesn't answer
fast enough when a search
engine spider tries to visit
your web site, then your web
pages won't be listed in search
engines. For that reason,
it is important to choose
a reliable host. Don't go
for cheap, go for quality.
Another important thing you
should consider is that Google
will put your web site into
the sandbox if you have a
new web site or if you change
your web pages. That means
that it can take up to six
months weeks until you get
regular rankings for your
pages on Google. The phenomenon
is explained
here. Other search engines
have similar filters.
It's hard, but the only thing
you can do is to wait. If
you have optimized web page
content and good incoming
links, you will get high search
engine rankings. It just might
take a while until you're
out of the sandbox. It will
happen.
In addition, it takes some
time until search engines
pick up new pages. Search
engines have to visit your
web pages, they have to evaluate
the found pages, they have
to build a new index and then
they have to publish the new
index. Depending on the search
engine, this might take 4-12
weeks. If you already have
other pages indexed by a search
engine, new pages might get
indexed faster but that's
not always the case.
If your web page rankings have
dropped, don't panic. Sometimes,
search engines are just testing
new ranking algorithms. Wait
2-4 weeks to find out if your
rankings have really dropped.
If your rankings have really
dropped, take a look at the
list above and make sure that
your web pages have all elements
that are needed to get high
search engine rankings. You
will get your rankings back
then.
|
