I'm confused - how is this possible?

[nfhiggs]

I did a google search for "computer upgrade" and the top return is 'directron.com'. Admittedly, its not a highly competitive keyword with only 40,000 monthly searches. I did a link analysis using SEOElite, and googles "link:" search term and the results were rather startling. Virtually every link to their index page is from their own site. There is only three links from external sites to their index page - and two of them have no page rank at all. The third one has a page rank of 3. WTF??!!

Can it really be this easy? three external links gets you the #1 spot?

BTW, my site no longer comes up with a google "site:" search. Why does google hate me so?

 

[Entrepreneur]

Do you by any chance use ppcwebspy or whatever that shitty peice of manipulative spyware is called? Remove that: Robert's your Father's Brother.

Regarding your site search, did it used to show as indexed? If it doesn't now you might have been sandboxed. Ouch.

 

[nfhiggs]

I've had the site online for over 3 years, but I've never done any optimizing, SEO, backlinking, etc, until the past few weeks. Google has never acknowledged my existence until last week when my pages started showing up in a "site:" search. Today when I checked I'm gone again. I've been using a link exchange site for the past week or so trying to get links.

Never even heard of the software you mentioned.

 

[nfhiggs]

I did another backlink analysis on the number one result for "computer hardware upgrade" - the #1 result is "hardwarehell.com" and it has ZERO external backlinks, yet it has #1 status and a page rank of 3!

I'm beginning to think there really is no method whatsoever to google's madness.

 

[nonhacker]

Maybe because you touched the site Google listed it, as it often does and then comes back and re analysis it and took you off the listing again..

most sites get some google presence for a wee while and then disappear again if not up to standard

 

[stinky_boy]

I don't know your situation, but--

Did you try googling "site:mysite.com"[remove quotes] to see if your indexed.

Do you have your site map straight[beware of the auto sitemap if you have anything that shouldn't be there]?

Did you do blackhat seo recently(remember some bh seo is long term and some is hit and run)?

Are you linked to warez/banned porn sites?

Do you have a correct robot.txt file?

Do you have a shit load of 404's?

Those are some questions I would ask if my self I was having problems.

 

[nfhiggs]

"Did you try googling "site:mysite.com"[remove quotes] to see if your indexed."

Yes, my pages were all coming up a couple of days ago, but now nothing again.

"Do you have your site map straight[beware of the auto sitemap if you have anything that shouldn't be there]?"

I've got a sitemap - Its a pretty straight forward site, just some pages to promote my computer business, and some computer related articles - certainly nothing Google should object to.

"Did you do blackhat seo recently(remember some bh seo is long term and some is hit and run)?"

Nope - just some basic link building from LinkMarket.com and some on-page optimaizations. Nothing sneaky at all.

"Are you linked to warez/banned porn sites?"

Nope nothing like that - all my links are relevant pages.

"Do you have a correct robot.txt file?"

Yes, Googlebot has been able to crawl my pages with no problems.

"Do you have a shit load of 404's?"

you mean re-directs? No nothing like that at all.

I'm really curious as to how the above mentioned site can have such ranking with no external links?

 

[ptsniper]

Google has never acknowledged my existence until last week

the #1 result is "hardwarehell.com" and it has ZERO external backlinks, yet it has #1 status and a page rank of 3!

if your sites only just been indexed, then there's a 90+% chance it'll show up again within a few days, just be patient.

and the weight for the number 1 site, comes from the root & internally. (don't just analyse the page that's ranking, look at the rest of the site.)

try not to use those link exchanges at all (or until you've got some credibility to your site)

 

[nfhiggs]

"and the weight for the number 1 site, comes from the root & internally. (don't just analyse the page that's ranking, look at the rest of the site.)"

Why would internal links count for anything at all? All of your pages should be linked anyway, why would they count towards search results? All of my pages are internally linked but Google doesn't seem to care. Not trying to sound dense, but what am I missing here?

 

[nfhiggs]

try not to use those link exchanges at all (or until you've got some credibility to your site)

Seems like a catch-22 - can't get links without credibility (or PR), can't get credibility (PR) without links...

 

[nfhiggs]

"and the weight for the number 1 site, comes from the root & internally. (don't just analyse the page that's ranking, look at the rest of the site.)"

Why would internal links count for anything at all? All of your pages should be linked anyway, why would they count towards search results? All of my pages are internally linked but Google doesn't seem to care. Not trying to sound dense, but what am I missing here?

Ok, I figured out whats going on here with the hardwarehell site. The page that I analyzed was not the index page, but was a sub page (I copied and pasted without looking closely). When I analyzed the site's index page I got a lot more external results. Makes more sense now.

 

[ptsniper]

Seems like a catch-22 - can't get links without credibility (or PR), can't get credibility (PR) without links...

it's not catch22 - those link exchanges I'm referring to are shite and will do little to help your site, possibly even penalising it. Get some quality links first.

And that's what I meant by check the rest of the site and root - internal links can play a big deal, especially in those lower competition phrases.

Don't take it the wrong way, but I'm guessing you're not very experienced with SEO, so it might be useful to read up on some basics first;

http://www.seomoz.org/article/search-ranking-factors

HTH

 

[nfhiggs]

"Don't take it the wrong way, but I'm guessing you're not very experienced with SEO, so it might be useful to read up on some basics first;"

No offense taken - I'm trying to learn this stuff but its not easy to find useful information that's understandable and not riddled with indecipherable slang and acronyms. Does someone know of an "Idiots guide to SEO" website?

I know "quality links" are key, but nowhere can I find useful info an how one acquires these "quality links" to begin with.

 

[woodstuck]

Write 3-6 awesome articles... and I mean awesome and original. Embed your bio and link and make it mandatory that anyone using your articles has to leave your link and bio attached.

Submit them to the free article and ezine websites... besides your website - as it gets read and passed around (because it IS good content), you gain quality links from every user of your article... not to mention you just gained links from 6 or 10 of the top web article sites to start with. You will get hundreds of incoming links from this exercise.

 

[195471]

"Do you have a shit load of 404's?"

you mean re-directs? No nothing like that at all.

FYI - 404 is a "Page Not Found" error and has nothing to do with redirects. You'd see 404s if you had broken links.

 

[Bugalugs]

Go over to Mashable and read this article.

http://mashable.com/2007/10/20/internal-linking-explained/

 

[thanks]

I know "quality links" are key, but nowhere can I find useful info an how one acquires these "quality links" to begin with.

You buy them.

Or exchange one way links with other people if you have more than 1 site.

 

[nfhiggs]

"You buy them."

1. Can't afford to buy links right now, so thats off the table.

2. Google is actively discouraging the buying of links and does not pass PR juice from sites that it knows are link sellers. They even have a 'report link sellers' button that I've seen. So thats really off the table.