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Google used to love me ... not so much now, help boards.ie SEO Gurus!

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  • 21-10-2009 4:18pm
    #1
    Owen
    Registered Users Posts: 12,683 ✭✭✭✭


    I run a site called miniclub.ie, which is a pretty active forum based site for the MINI Club of Ireland. It's running a heavily modified version of PHPNuke 8, which myself and one of the other admins have been upgrading as needs demanded (Auto image resizing, additional profile options, etc).

    The front page of the site is mainly articles, and polls, and links to our merchandise store, and the forum is where the activity happens. We used to be on the first page of google.ie if you search for the word mini, but now we're unloved and unwanted. I haven't changed any of the description in the site or Meta tags (I don't think they're so important anymore anyway, right?).

    We're still getting new members, and forum posts, so there's activity for Google to see.

    Could some kind soul take a quick look, and tell us what we could do to improve our ranking - I'm not looking to be back at the #1 spot, but certainly an improvement would be beneficial for the club.

    [EDIT]I know the last main page article is a little out of date - mostly due to my SEO frustration, but new articles usually go live every fortnight


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    #2
    IRE60
    Registered Users Posts: 1,880 ✭✭✭IRE60


    you havn't been indexed since 28/Sep

    you are broadcasting on both www and non www - leads to a spiders doing twice the work for the same result. You do twice the work for the same money and that will p1ss you off. I'd make that a priority.


    failing that, get the thermo on the rad replaced. notorious for giving up and not relaying overheating trouble!


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    #3
    Derek B
    Closed Accounts Posts: 136 ✭✭Derek B


    IRE60 wrote: »
    you are broadcasting on both www and non www - leads to a spiders doing twice the work for the same result. You do twice the work for the same money and that will p1ss you off. I'd make that a priority.

    I would suggest implementing a 301 permanent re-directs as following in order to alleviate canonicalisation issues

    http://miniclub.ie -> 301 -> http://www.miniclub.ie
    http://www.miniclub.ie/index.php -> 301 -> http://www.miniclub.ie

    All 3 URLs (http://miniclub.ie, http://www.miniclub.ie, http://www.miniclub.ie/index.php) return a HTTP header status of 200 OK. This means that they are seen as 3 distinct pages by search engines, when in actuality they render the same page. In theory, you can be building strength/pagerank/link equity on 3 seperate pages, this will concentrate it all on your preferred URL, ttp://www.miniclub.ie.


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    #4
    Derek B
    Closed Accounts Posts: 136 ✭✭Derek B


    What I would suggest is to work on building links to you site, which should help your search engine rankings.

    In your case, there are several excellent opportunities for link baiting. Your visitors are all mini lovers of some sort, many of whom would have their own sites, many of which may be mini/auto related (and therefore relevant). I'm sure plenty of your regular visitors would add a link to your site, especially if you encourage them and give them the link code so they only have to put in a small amount of effort.

    What I would suggest is to create a widget/badge, something along the lines of 'Mini Club of Ireland Member' or 'Mini Club of Ireland Fan'. This badge would sit prominently on your site, and would allow for people to copy a piece of code, which they can take and put on their own site. The code would contain a link to http://www.miniclub.ie (Ideally it would be an image with a text based link just beneath). The badge would be a visual image, and on your site there should be a call to action like 'Add our badge to your site'. Hope I've conveyed this in a way that makes sense.


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    #5
    link8r
    Closed Accounts Posts: 387 ✭✭link8r


    PaintDoctor wrote: »
    I run a site called miniclub.ie, which is a pretty active forum based site for the MINI Club of Ireland. It's running a heavily modified version of PHPNuke 8, which myself and one of the other admins have been upgrading as needs demanded (Auto image resizing, additional profile options, etc).

    We're still getting new members, and forum posts, so there's activity for Google to see.

    Google will crawl-index pages based on authority. Sites with low authority/PageRank/Importance are crawled & indexed slower and not as deeply. As your site grows in importance, so will the number of pages indexed, the frequency and the position they get.
    PaintDoctor wrote: »
    Could some kind soul take a quick look, and tell us what we could do to improve our ranking - I'm not looking to be back at the #1 spot, but certainly an improvement would be beneficial for the club.

    [EDIT]I know the last main page article is a little out of date - mostly due to my SEO frustration, but new articles usually go live every fortnight
    [/quote]

    Static content that hasn't changed can still rank and stay ranked. New sites often get a high place at the start and then drop until their authority is high enough.

    When you say you want to rank, you have to have a clear plan of what and why you want to rank for something. It also helps if that matches what people actually search for. Go and build a network of sites - especially related ones. Becareful with where you get links from too.


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