Google Search woes

[leviathan]

Chaps,

I wonder if someone could please help me with this problem. My main website gets picked up on google easily, but although I populate my attached actinic store with fully described listings, not one thing is being picked up on a google search.

What could I have overlooked?

Thanks in advance



MJC

[Darren B]

Perhaps a url would help :rolleyes:

[leviathan]

Sorry,

www.flying-tigers.co.uk

Please go easy on me.....I am afraid I have limited technical knowledge!


Regards



MJC

[acompton]

In what way do you mean by "not picked up on Google"? I tried two searches on Google UK:

"WTW-72-020-004 LOCKHEED P-38 LIGHTNING"
- you're the only entry (ok, extreme example)

"LOCKHEED P-38 LIGHTNING 1/72nd"
- you're at the top of page 2

You might do better to convert to SPP (Single product-per-page), or at least get all the paint variants of one model onto a single page.

[Duncan Rounding]

...lthough I populate my attached actinic store with fully described listings, not one thing is being picked up on a google search...

What did you search for?

[Mike Hughes]

At the most basic level there are two many steps to get to your products. This is also bad for customers as most will give up after 2-3 clicks.

For example. To get to your products I have to go through:

=> Enter Online Store => Military Aviation => Corgi Aviation => Stock Items => Prop Power.

By this time your pages Google pagerank has all disappeared and most of the intermediate pages aren't ranked because there's no content on them.

What you need to do is:

1. Publish your actinic sitemap. This will help Google find all your pages.

2. Improve your sites structure and navigation to make it easier for google and Customers to find what you have. The standard advice used to be no more than 2-3 clicks and that's still pretty good practice.

Mike

[Stereo Steve]

Your site is mostly supplemental. Out of 141 pages indexed, only 16 are in the main index. The rest will not rate except for very rare or unique matches. You need to read up on supplemental results and start the long and painful journey to get out of them.

One thing that seemed to really help us is decompressing the source code of our site in Actinic. Either way, you won't get results overnight but try searching here for 'supplemental'.

The pages google have indexed can be seen by googling site:www.flying-tigers.co.uk

The try site:www.flying-tigers.co.uk/* to see the pages which google has indexed fully and includes in the main index. You should find most google organic traffic to your site lands on these 16 pages.

[Darren B]

just a suggestion, you might want to update your sitemap it could be seen as being alittle out of date (2007-09-24)

[leviathan]

Thank you very much for the info guy's. I did say I was a little 'basic' in these matters, so would you please explain how I can update my sitemap?

Best wishes



MJC

[Darren B]

There are various tools around, one of jans moles does them but search the interent, there are loads out there.

you could use this one http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/

there is also a thread around here about changing a site map and what can happen

[Stereo Steve]

Beware of sitemaps. Misuse can cause more harm than good. If ou are not well versed in them I would avoid and rely on the standard Actinic html one. Your site is being spidered and using an XML sitemap will just allow google to put more new pages in the supplemental index.

We haven't used one for ages and see no ill effect from ditching it. In fact, quite the opposite. Good internal linking is much more important.

[RuralWeb]

as Steve says site maps can be counter productive. I would suggest that your pages are not being listed because they are too big file size wise.

Part of the google algorithum checks the page weight and if it is too big then the page is not indexed. The reason being that itwill take too long to load and not provide a good user experience. You need to make your pages smaller by either building single product pages or putting less products in each section. Also optimize hour images better to again reduce page weight.

[Stereo Steve]

An example of auto generated XML sitemaps is that they often include a field to tell the engine how often the page is updated. This is usually set to 'daily'. Now, if you have a product page and it's pretty static but you are telling the engine that it's updated daily, it's not going to be too long before google thinks you are trying to pull a fast one.

The main reason I can see for a sitemap is to tell google about new content and get it indexed fast. All well and good but there are alternative ways to do this which have no risk and more permanent long term benefits. For example, you may find a way to link in to this page from a well spidered and popular site. The page gets indexed and you gain some link weight.

Use an XML and the page goes supplemental and you have to fight like hell to get it out.

[Darren B]

I use sitemaps that just give the url, i only use it to show the new url's. I am certainly no seo guru and normally avoid these areas.

I was trying to to find the thread about sitemaps, but could not remember who posted it, the one were they changed it and it all went tits up. definately worth a read.

[TraceyHand]

LOL Darren
I have no idea what you just said!

[Stereo Steve]

http://community.actinic.com/showthread.php?t=38291&highlight=xml+sitemaps

[Darren B]

LOL Darren
I have no idea what you just said!

And you think i have :rolleyes:

[Darren B]

http://community.actinic.com/showthread.php?t=38291&highlight=xml+sitemaps


yep that be the one

[Stereo Steve]

A sitemap is like an AK47. Very powerful if used correctly but most are more likely to blow their foot off.

[leviathan]

Guy's,

I wish I had half of your knowledge! Really interesting views and most valuable. It seems I have found myself between a rock and a hard place! My customers comment on how much they like the site - that it is clear, easy to navigate and they can find what they want really easily!

Once they manage to find the site, everything seems to be ok! If a collector does not know about my site and they try a google search, we tend to come nowhere! The way I have set up the store, I don't know if individual pages for each product would work (and I am not sure I would know how to change it anyway).

So, the question seems to be 'do I drive the main website name awareness and hope the store format is a hit with my customers (knowing I might miss the casual googler:rolleyes:), or do I look to increase this exposure, at the risk of altering the site functionality'?

And to think.....I used to be indecisive!;)


Thank you very much for your comments.



MJC

[Stereo Steve]

Michael,

If your customers like the site the I wouldn't change much. You have good, unique content. Here's my take on it from personal and bitter experience.

Un-compress your code in Actinic.
Bin the XML sitemap altogether.
Make sure your site is on a UK server and not a shared IP with a thousand porn and scam sites.
Continue to build good text content and work on some decent inbound links.
Make sure your internal linking is good, study this.
Build and honest site which works for the customers you have. Build text content and try to cultivate links in.
Don't partake in link marketing, dodgy SEO or anything similar.

Please feel free to ignore any or all of the above.

[leviathan]

Cheers Stereo!

I really wish I knew how to do all that stuff - I am determined to find out though!

Thanks for your most constructive advice!



Best wishes



MJC

[Darren B]

this site is will give you some ideas http://www.myipneighbors.com/

Im guessing 1and1 is your host

[leviathan]

Darren B,

Thank you very much for your help!

If you ever need to know anything about Spitfires!:rolleyes:



Best wishes



MJC

[Mike Hughes]

Sheesh. Sometimes you guys make the simplest thing complicated.

Actinic creates its own sitemap page that links to to all the pages on your website and makes it easier for the search engines to find those pages. All you need to do is tell actinic to do it and make sure there's a link to your sitemap on the home page.

This is all done from within actinic but the details on how to do it depend on which version of actinic you have. Try searching for 'sitemap' in the help files.

Mike

[RuralWeb]

Note. It's google sitemaps I have been talking about as they are completely different to an actinic sitemap and as mike says an actinic sitemap is easily generated and is a must for any site.