Desired target – page one on Google.com.au for Mosquito Nets
In this case, the problem was doing as Google says, but understood what Google is saying. Google says first and foremost, make websites for people.Don’t make websites for search engines.Whilst this is true, it’s important to understand what Googles defines as being for people.
In the case of the Mostique website, at first glance…. it would appear that this was in fact being done.The site was beautifully designed, easy to navigate, had a great product range and lots of great information about mosquito nets.It was a website made for people.So why was it on page 6, instead of page one?
The problem was, Google has its own definition of what making a website for people entails – what Google REALLY means is make your website for people, but make sure you do so in such a way that you don’t trip any Google filters.The Google algorithm is very clever and in 99% of cases, it does find the best sites for a search result, is not fooled by tricks, and does not penalise good sites unfairly.But no algorithm is infallible, and in the case of Mostique the Google algorithm was giving their site black marks for innocuous, minor issues, which really should have not been an issue.
Changing the site to ensure it still kept the look, feel and user experience as desired by the client, as well as ensuring it did no inadvertently trip Google filters was no easy task, and involved a fair bit of give and take.It can be frustrating to have a search engine set the guidelines as to how a website must be put together in order to rank well.
But at the end of the Day, Google is king, so the website needed to be modified to achieve a good result for both site visitors and Google.
December 18 2009 We are proceeding slowly. Up to page 4, making the required changes to the system are proving to be difficult without compromising the site appearance. Its also running on a server running on older, Microsoft Server 2003 operating system which is not helping things.
December 26 2009
Up to 21 today, so onto page 3.
January 2 2010
Up to 11 to today, top of page 2, Tantalisingly close to the first page.
February 2010
No.5 achieved, a good result.
June 2010
Position 2 achieved.
July 2010
Site suffers a drop in rankings after a new design and system is installed. the new design is great, even better than the first, but Google took exception to some of the site elements and once again, the site was filtered down the list.
Seoguys called back in to fix the issues. Site on page6.
August 12 2010
Well, this is a first for us. We have resigned from this job.
Not because we can't get the site to NO.1, but because the client and their web developer have decided not to follow our advice.
They have embarked on a plan of having only a tiny amount of content on their site, combined with a complex path of pages with canonical meta tags on them. SEO suicide.
But try as we may, they are refusing to add the content and remove the tags… even though the site was at number 2. before they made these changes, and has remained low ranked since the changes were made
Enormously disappointing for us as we've put in mountains of work on this project and the site should be at No.1 right now but the reality is if our instructions are not followed there is nothing we can do.
We are hopeful that by withdrawing from the project whilst still leaving all our external work in place, by refusing to accept any further payments even if our advice is now followed and rankings recover.. that the client will simply heed our advice and save their website's rankings.
I want rankings on many different terms
Will you take on any client and take them to the top of Google?
Can html errors affect my search engine rankings?
Do You do Web Design Too?
Mosquito Nets – Make sites for people and search engines
Desired target – page one on Google.com.au for Mosquito Nets
In this case, the problem was doing as Google says, but understood what Google is saying. Google says first and foremost, make websites for people. Don’t make websites for search engines. Whilst this is true, it’s important to understand what Googles defines as being for people.
In the case of the Mostique website, at first glance…. it would appear that this was in fact being done. The site was beautifully designed, easy to navigate, had a great product range and lots of great information about mosquito nets. It was a website made for people. So why was it on page 6, instead of page one?
The problem was, Google has its own definition of what making a website for people entails – what Google REALLY means is make your website for people, but make sure you do so in such a way that you don’t trip any Google filters. The Google algorithm is very clever and in 99% of cases, it does find the best sites for a search result, is not fooled by tricks, and does not penalise good sites unfairly. But no algorithm is infallible, and in the case of Mostique the Google algorithm was giving their site black marks for innocuous, minor issues, which really should have not been an issue.
Changing the site to ensure it still kept the look, feel and user experience as desired by the client, as well as ensuring it did no inadvertently trip Google filters was no easy task, and involved a fair bit of give and take. It can be frustrating to have a search engine set the guidelines as to how a website must be put together in order to rank well.
But at the end of the Day, Google is king, so the website needed to be modified to achieve a good result for both site visitors and Google.
December 18 2009
We are proceeding slowly. Up to page 4, making the required changes to the system are proving to be difficult without compromising the site appearance. Its also running on a server running on older, Microsoft Server 2003 operating system which is not helping things.
December 26 2009
Up to 21 today, so onto page 3.
January 2 2010
Up to 11 to today, top of page 2, Tantalisingly close to the first page.
February 2010
No.5 achieved, a good result.
June 2010
Position 2 achieved.
July 2010
Site suffers a drop in rankings after a new design and system is installed. the new design is great, even better than the first, but Google took exception to some of the site elements and once again, the site was filtered down the list.
Seoguys called back in to fix the issues. Site on page6.
August 12 2010
Well, this is a first for us. We have resigned from this job.
Not because we can't get the site to NO.1, but because the client and their web developer have decided not to follow our advice.
They have embarked on a plan of having only a tiny amount of content on their site, combined with a complex path of pages with canonical meta tags on them. SEO suicide.
But try as we may, they are refusing to add the content and remove the tags… even though the site was at number 2. before they made these changes, and has remained low ranked since the changes were made
Enormously disappointing for us as we've put in mountains of work on this project and the site should be at No.1 right now but the reality is if our instructions are not followed there is nothing we can do.
We are hopeful that by withdrawing from the project whilst still leaving all our external work in place, by refusing to accept any further payments even if our advice is now followed and rankings recover.. that the client will simply heed our advice and save their website's rankings.