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Hiya,

Thanks for the response, some really interesting ideas. It looks like it's just our site that is bouncing around in the serps.

I think point 2 is probably the most likely explanation. Although the site was built with SEO in mind, so the pages are all unique and with a good amount of content, we have a few issues with trailing forward slashes, which could be creating a duplicate content problem.

Basically the site is divided up into 9 sections - 7 of those sections are fine and ranking well, but 2 of them are bouncing around. Of the 2 that are bouncing around we have done some link building for just 1 of the sections.

I'll have another dig around in webmaster tools. If you have any other ideas in the meantime they'd be much appreciated!

Thanks

Hi,

Since January, the Google rankings for one of our sites has been jumping around. Sometimes it's on page 1, then it disappears and comes back around 1 month later.

It's strange because it's only a small section of the site that it's happening to. Every other section of the site is doing really well.

Just wondered if anyone else is having this problem, or has had it and can suggest any fixes.

There are no technical issues, no changes have been made to the site, all I can think is it's Google messing around with their algorithm?

Any help or advice would be much appreciated.

Karen

Hi,

There is a piece of code that you can add to page source which will instruct the page to load first and then for the social box to load afterwards. This means that your page will load without being slowed down by the social network's servers if they're experiencing high volumes of traffic.

Below is a good article on how to do it for Twitter, I imagine a similar thing would work for Facebook - http://remysharp.com/2007/03/20/how-to-add-twitter-to-your-blog-without-it-hanging-your-site/

Hope it helps!

Karen

Hi,

I don't know much about the service if offers, but I'd imagine anything 'automated' would be classed as black hat by Google.

When link building I often go by the moto - if it's too good to be true, it probably is. Depressing huh? But it's a good way of keeping link building under control...

Karen

Hi,

Have you noticed an increase in the number of visits coming from '(not provided)' in the keyword list?

If so, it could be down to the new privacy laws - more people being logged in when they search and therefore being recognised as a return visitor, rather than a new one?

Not sure how much that helps - it's just an idea to throw in the mix!

Karen

I typically work according to a 1:2 ratio - for every 1 directory link I build (niche-specific), I build 2 links from other link sources. This seems to work well for us.

I think there are still some really good natural directories out there (that aren't just for SEO), so I'd be surprised if Google didn't take into account directories.

Thanks Keith, totally agree with you - directories definitely aren't as valuable as they used to be and they only make up a tiny part of our link building strategy now. This is why we seem to have developed our favourite ones as we submit sites to so few directories, we want to make sure they're good ones!

Yes - agreed, DMoz is a classic, and where we start a lot of our link building campaigns. But do you have much luck when submitting? It seems to us that sites are rarely approved

We're having a bit of a debate in the office today about SEO directories. We all seem to have our favourites here - Octopedia, AbiLogic and JoeAnt to name a few that have been mentioned.

Just wondering what everyone else's favourite directories for SEO are?

Which pass the best link juice? Which offer the best value for money? Would love to know everyone's thoughts...

This is perfect thank you. Exactly what I was looking for!

Hi,

Just wondering if anyone knows if YouTube uses transcripts uploaded to videos as search signals? ie will the video rank better in the SERPs with a transcript?

Thanks

Hello from a not-so-cold (but not sunny yet) Bristol.

Remember Google can crawl a page and still not index it - so you probably want to know which pages Google has indexed?

To see how many pages are indexed in Webmaster tools it is useful to look at your sitemaps page - it'll tell you how many pages have been submitted and how many of those have been indexed.

One thing you can do to see which pages are in Google's index is type the below into Google search engine

site:http://......

There is a good thread on this in the webmaster tools forum that you might find useful - http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Webmasters/thread?tid=378b3cdf485ee3a7&hl=en

Thanks,

Karen

Hi,

Sorry - 'live' in Squidoo language is 'featured'. For your article to be visible to search engines external to Squidoo it needs to be a 'featured lens'. You can see if your article is featured by logging in and seeing if you have a red circle or green tick by it.

Another way you can get your lens featured is to encourage other squidoo members to comment on the article.

With regards to HubPages - you need to have a Hub Score of more than 40 or a hubber score of more than 75 for the links to be made 'dofollow'. If your article is good enough and you build some links into it, or promote it, it doesn't seem to be too difficult to get a score above 40.

Hi,

I've used Squidoo for link building before and it does provide a good backlink.

You need to make sure that your article is live on Squidoo before the link is seen by the search engines. This isn't easy, but it is possible.

Firstly, make sure your post is worthy of being published. Make your lens as interesting and unique as possible - lots of content, images etc. Squidoo seem to love 'top 10' articles.

Secondly, make sure your article is live. Squidoo will often put your post live at first and then take it down over the next day or so. This can be rectified by building links into your squidoo page (ie plug it on a social network page like Facebook, or build some free directory links into it).

Another site similar to Squidoo is 'HubPages', this is good for link building as well.

Hope that helps!