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I do have an example of a site that I launched that normally would have done really well with an exact match domain and original content. However I could not seem to get the site to rank. I wondered if it was that the site was hosted in a bad "neighborhood"  because the IP had some adult sites on it as well (not mine). Or if the problem was that the site was hosted in too much of a cluster of similar sites so as to appear as a network of sites. I would also argue that with the Panda update that links from bad neighborhoods can hurt you.

I have heard of this problem before. I was about to pitch a client of setting up snippets in their ecommerce site but decided againt it because I didnt want to be held resoponsible when they invest in the development hours and Google refuses to display them for a year. Is this common? Anyone else had similar experiences.

I would also say manufacturers would be authority sites.  For instance if you ran a camera site, Nikon, Sony, and other popular manufacturers would be authority links for the camera niche.  Really any creator of an original product will be considered authority.  So any NBA team or other sports franchise homepage would be an authority too. I would also say any of the top 500 or 1000 sites on the internet (I believe SEOmoz has a 500 list) are close to being authorities.  This won't always hold true but regardless a link from one of those sites will be strong.

thanks Roger, yes I did submit sitemap and i agree that is TIME Length issue.

I highly recommend checking out the Webinar Friday Rand did on this very subject: Getting Value from XML Sitemaps, HTML Sitemaps & Feeds.

Thanks for the help - that fixed it! If you lived in Austin, TX we'd give you some free Muay Thai classes!! logo-figure-solo-12.jpg

Thanks for all your input! Just wanted some more experienced input, we shall see how it turns out.

Everything seems to be being crawled correctly. Really puzzling actually. None of the other sites had a ton of backlinks either so that wasn't really the issue, just wanted anyone stumbling upon them to be redirected.

It sounds like a useless scam. The good thing about getting "liked" by a Facebook user is that your link/info shows up on that persons wall for ALL their friends to see and it gets you more visibility and the chance to get more traffic. With these companies that offer to sell you "likes" it will do no good to you since it will be only fake Facebook accounts, with no real friends, that it will show up on and not give you the added exposure or value that you really desire.

I have seen stuff like that in the SERP's but the only experience I have of getting hacked is a bit different. I worked in-house for a large travel corporation a couple of years ago and whilst the company's site was fine, their very popular blog wasn't. I just started there and looked at the source code of the blog (for some reason nobody was ever checking that) and found that there were hundreds of links to porn and poker sites hidden by CSS. It was all down to the fact that the blog was on Wordpress and hadn't been updated for a while. Other than that, we've had sites we host hacked a few times, from hidden links to malware on the sites which of course produced warnings in the browsers. Again, all down to not keeping up with security patches and other updates. I learnt some lessons there.

I just did a little deeper look into the code of the competitor websites.  They are using a css in the code: This creates a scrolling text box on the homepage.  I've included the code on one of my home pages and we'll see if it effects my results at all.

It works better for my sites that offer a valuable services and aren't just shopping or ads.  But if you get creative with some useful or helpful content, those outlets will be more likely to link to you.

I never used it -if it would have automatically changed bids to hit the desired position and had a cap on the bid that would have been great but the way it was didn't work for me.