SEO Tycoon

**LadynRed** · 04:22 PM

I'm stumped, maybe one of you 'experts' can come up with an answer.
We build web sites for doctor's practices. One of our practices is a fairly specialized field and we built this Dr a site. We have content, not stupendous, but there's something there. I put in keywords, descriptions and title tags and my markup is valid and semantically correct.

Now, this doctor's competitor has a site - same specialty and they're down the road from each other.. BUT this guy's site comes up 3rd on Google. Ok, you think he's got a great site, lots of content, SEO'd to the 9's right ??

WRONG !! THIS is the source for the site

Quote:

<html>

<title>
Virginia XXXXX XXXXXX
</title>

<body>
<font face="verdana">
<div align=center>
practice name<br>
street address<br>
Richmond, Virginia<br>
(xxx) xxx-xxxx <br>
Click <a href="mailto:blahblahblah">here</a> to contact us.
</div>
</font>

</body>
</html>

I've taken out the real name and address for specific reasons.
I kid you not, that is ALL there is to this site, NO content, NO keywords or descriptions,
--- NOTHING but an email link !

As far as I can find, there are no incoming links to this site -- so HOW does this site
rank above ours ?? Our site has even been out there 3 months longer than this one

. The title
for our site is almost identical - but I added the doctor's name to it.

If you folks can find inbound links or SOMETHING that explains this, please, enlighten me.
From everything I've read thru, this site shouldn't index at all.

Like I said.. I'm stumped....

**Learning Newbie** · 07-06-2007, 04:25 PM

Look into the $20 million worth of Google stock he bought. Just kidding, but people seem to think Google is a conspiracy.

How do you know there aren't any links pointing to your competitors site? I would think that's really the only thing that would explain this. Although the quality of code doesn't seem to be a factor.

What keyword is he beating you for? If it's gynecology, the name of your town, what? I thought more content was better, but maybe if the term is just about the only thing on his page?

**LadynRed** · 04:43 PM

What keyword ?? The title for the site (rather not put it here, don't need him getting any more rankings !) - if you search on that term, that nothing site comes up #3.. OUR title is virtually the SAME THING. You can see that there's nothing else on his page.

How do I know he doesn't have any incoming links ?? I can't find any, but some of you folks may have better tools or methods for digging out backlinks than I do

**Learning Newbie** · 07-06-2007, 04:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LadynRed

How do I know he doesn't have any incoming links ?? I can't find any, but some of you folks may have better tools or methods for digging out backlinks than I do

Google is really secretive about this. Most people who know more than I do recommend Yahoo's "Site Explorer" for a shovel.

**chrishirst** · 07-06-2007, 05:00 PM

sounds like real spam

Sites Positioned Above Mine

Seriously though,

New sites do often rank very highly for search terms.

PM a URI and it will get a coat of looking at.

**LadynRed** · 07-06-2007, 05:11 PM

Thanks Chris, I'll do that. Our doctor is apparently a real diva and Googles herself often.. and doesn't like that the competitor comes up in top 10 results.

**ADAM Web Design** · 07-06-2007, 05:17 PM

I'll take a boo as well, Diane. PM me. My initial hunch is that it's one of a non-competitive keyword (since you mentioned a doctor's name, that's my hunch), a lightning in a bottle scenario, something that varies across datacenters, or a combination of the three.

**Learning Newbie** · 07-06-2007, 06:21 PM

Any ideas? I'm glad people in the know are looking at this, because I'm really not qualified. But when everyone comes to a conclusion, I'd love to learn more!

**LadynRed** · 07-06-2007, 06:44 PM

Yeah.. I'm interested. I don't stress about rankings, I know it's a crap shoot, especially with small sites like most of ours. Some of the doctors however.. that's another story. Some are like 'I wanna be #1 on Google'. I try to impart what little knowledge I have on what THEY have to do to even get near the top 50, but few do anything.

**ADAM Web Design** · 07-06-2007, 08:51 PM

Never rely on them to do anything, Diane. If they want to rank highly on search engines and they say that to you, that's their way of telling you "I haven't got the patience to do this myself. Get me there."

DIY, the only way to fly.

**SuperGoogle** · 07-06-2007, 10:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by chrishirst

sounds like real spam

Sites Positioned Above Mine

Seriously though,

New sites do often rank very highly for search terms.

PM a URI and it will get a coat of looking at.

SPAM

Super Powerful Angry Marketers!

**Popeye** · 07-06-2007, 10:15 PM

Good guesstimates so far. If none of those pan out, how about the age? Is the competitor's age older than yours?

Also, are you sure you haven't OVER optimized the pages?

Backlinks could be another issue.

Also, have you allowed time for your site to rise in the rankings? Sometimes a site will just inch up for no apparent reason, other times they shoot right to the top.

Please let us know how this turns out.

**SuperGoogle** · 07-06-2007, 10:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Popeye

Good guesstimates so far. If none of those pan out, how about the age? Is the competitor's age older than yours?

Also, are you sure you haven't OVER optimized the pages?

Backlinks could be another issue.

Also, have you allowed time for your site to rise in the rankings? Sometimes a site will just inch up for no apparent reason, other times they shoot right to the top.

Please let us know how this turns out.

Seriously, Age of the domain is something must people don't consider.
But it is a major factor.

Just keep adding more pages.

**vangogh** · 07-07-2007, 01:04 AM

Diane if you want to PM me the URL I'll be happy to take a look too. It's hard to really know what's going on without seeing the site.

You mentioned this being a specialized field so I'm guessing there's little in the way of competition. When they're very little competition it doesn't take much to rank. Often the title alone will be enough to rank well for the words in the title.

If you PM me the URL (ideally for both your client and the competitor) I'll be happy to take a look and see if I can add to what Chris and Adam have to say.

**francesca_luise** · 06:38 AM

first title tag should be inside of head tag

should be
<head>
<title> Your title include your keyword </title>
</head>

Another you didn't close your anchor text <a>
for sure it will not link you

it should be:

<a href="mailo:blahblah@yahoo.com"> example </a>

**chrishirst** · 07-07-2007, 07:03 AM

You didn't actually read the post at all did you? Scanned it and half understood what you thought you read at best.

**chrishirst** · 07-07-2007, 07:53 AM

Ok;

The rankings for both sites are simply the product of being new/newish (in Google terms) and the phrase being very low in targeted competition. 20 pages for allintitle:words . 932 pages for intitle:words and 12 pages from 5 disparate sites for the phrase search (intitle:"words")

neither MSN or Yahoo! know about the sites or the page(s) haven't made the index as yet.

how one site got found by the crawlers is through this page this links to a status page for the hostname and on there is a link to the site in question. The same will have happened for the other site.

**ADAM Web Design** · 07-07-2007, 09:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by francesca_luise

first title tag should be inside of head tag

should be
<head>
<title> Your title include your keyword </title>
</head>

Another you didn't close your anchor text <a>
for sure it will not link you

it should be:

<a href="mailo:blahblah@yahoo.com"> example </a>

If you had bothered to read, you would have realized that this was her competitor's code, not hers. Anyone who has ever seen LNR's work knows she wouldn't code a site like that.

This is like telling Ozzie Smith or Omar Vizquel how to play shortstop.

**LadynRed** · 03:04 PM

Thanks for taking a look at it guys. I realize that age is a big factor and there's just nothing we can do about that, really.

Adam, I really can't do much for them when it comes to garnering links beyond making suggestions. I don't know the doctor's affiliations and organizational involvements, other than what might be on their CV's. About the only ones I might have any sucess with is the hospitals they are affiliated with - OUR hospitals. It just has to be up to them to actually DO something. Most of them don't have a clue what it really takes. I had one practice manager email me the very next day after their site went live and ask why she couldn't find the site on Google - 1 DAY !! Most domains are 'live' within a couple of days of us buying it - it's a 'coming soon' thing, but at least it's out there to be found.

Chris - thanks for the analysis

. I made a couple of changes to the site's index page last night.. we'll see what happens. Hopefully the division area marketing guy, who seems to be somewhat web-savvy, will kick some butt and effect some much needed changes.

Does submitting sites to DMOZ have ANY real impact ? I realize they operate on a hand-picked basis and sites I have submitted to DMOZ have never shown up.. but I don't lose any real sleep over it. Does actually submitting a site to MSN or Yahoo make any real difference ?

As for SuperGoogle's suggestion of 'adding more pages' .. not likely to happen. These are doctors we're talking about. There's only so much you can add to a site for a practice and they simply do not have the time to add content for content's sake. These are generally small sites and in all likelihood they'll always be small. IF I can get one of the practices to try the blog idea, even a small one, there might be some growth. So far, none of them has jumped at the idea, even though many of them have written hundreds of articles for medical journals. I do have 1 doctor that writes a quarterly newsletter and it's on the site as a PDF. Another practice in Dallas also does a newsletter and I've trying to nudge the PM there to publish on the web in addition to mailing it.

Steve - I'll PM you the info

**ForrestCroce** · 07-07-2007, 03:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ADAM Web Design

This is like telling Ozzie Smith or Omar Vizquel how to play shortstop.

It's too early in the morning, and I'm nursing my coffee. For a minute, I was wondering why you're trying to get Ozzie Osborne to play baseball.

Quote:

Originally Posted by LadynRed

Does submitting sites to DMOZ have ANY real impact ? I realize they operate on a hand-picked basis and sites I have submitted to DMOZ have never shown up.. but I don't lose any real sleep over it. Does actually submitting a site to MSN or Yahoo make any real difference ?

Submitting to MSN and Yahoo will do no good at all. Some people say it'll identify a site as spam, and I think they tend to be full of it, but SEs are designed to find you through links, and the submit a site form is an afterthought. As over-hyped as "backlinkz, dude, backlinz" is, that's the answer in this situation.

I submitted my site to DMOZ about a year ago, and as far as I know, it hasn't made it in. I've been approached by other directories, asking if they can list my site, for free and w/o a reciprocal link, so I don't think I was rejected on quality reasons. In a few years, I might be approved. So I don't think this is a quick fix, if it's any type of fix at all.

I don't think many directories will have a tremendous impact. I couldn't tell you which ones. AboutUs at least takes less than a minute to create an entry, so if there's no return, there's almost no investment, either. You might go down the list in the directory forum here; I think it'll be minimal help, but it sounds like you don't need much to put you over the top.

Why don't you post a link to the site you're working on in this thread? First and foremost it will get you advice from more people, although maybe that's why? That would also give your client's site a very small bump, and I hate to even sound like I'm encouraging spam, but with all the selfless help you've handed out, no one will begrudge you dropping a link to a site you're asking about.

If not, feel free to PM me the link and I'll look it over, too, but most of what I know about "seo" I learned from people who are already working on it for you. But my own personal site would be a lot more ugly and less functional if I hadn't found the html and css forums here, and your endless advice in particular, so if I can start to repay that debt I'd be thrilled...