I need a little explanation here.

I have just developed a website for a friend (very simple - the website, that is!) who runs a small florist shop. It is situated in Tunbrdige Wells, Kent UK.

Mysteriously, it appears nowhere (well 41st!) if I search google UK for 'florist tunbri dge wells' but if I just search for 'florist tunbridge' it is 4th. As no-one ever writes tunbridge without wells (except for the one mystery visitor who tripped upon the site this way..) I don't understand what is happening here - the ratio tunbrid ge:wells on all websites is 1:1 so why does leaving our 'wells' matter?

(site is http://www.darlingandwild.co.uk)

Any comments (kind and tactful) on this quirky search welcome.

that is very strange, maybe other sites have their site more optimized for the wells part, of the phrase, thats my only guess

Firstly, tunbridge wells rocks I go climbing on the sandstone quite frequently since I live at Rochester when I am not at uni!

As for your questions it is really quite simple your use of a extra word wells has introduced far more websites that match the search criteria they all have higher prs then you and so make you 640! Also bear in mind Tundbrige Wells is an address so there will be millions of sites that list the exact phrase tunbridge wells! Basically you need to get up your rank so your site comes higher on the search engine.

See your site is now having 47 rank for "florist tunbridge well" keyword and 9 rank for "lorist tunbridge" keyword....
It is very strange for above result as you mentioned that tunbridge can not be without well and still your site is having high ranking in the keyword without well....really very strange...but there will be a possibility that
For the keyword "florist tunbridge well" there is very high competition....so there is possibility that no one can targeted trubridge without well keywords....therefore search engine found that you have targeted different keywords which do not targeted by any body and thus less competition in this keyword...so this might be the reason for your site having high rank in "florist tunbridgel" key word.....

Just add some rich content on your home page and do some basic SEO for your targeted keyword then definitely your site will be within top position for "florist tunbridge well" key word...

Thanks for all the responses. I am working on increasing content, but the client is very set on a minimalist front page. I'm going to give it a couple of months then try and get her to look at her stats and see how they could be improved.

Going back to the original question though, it's still a mystery to me.

For EVERY SITE RETURNED BY GOOGLE, density of 'Tunbridge' = density of 'Tunbridge Well'. Position/font/use of 'Tunbridge' = position of 'Tunbri dge Wells'. In my view, searching on Tunbride and Tunbridge Wells should return the same set of results, so why the different order?

It's all to do with Google's algo. The last up date has been producing some very strange results as well, with some sites bouncing up and down the results.

You should be able to get some good rankings without extra content although better content would help. Google puts more weight on links than content and any links pointing to a site are considered to be part of the site thus adding extra content with out actually adding any content to the site (if that makes any sense at all). Focus on getting some good links from other florist sites, this should be quite easy as your target phrase is specific to one area. Contact some other florists sites that are targeting other areas of the country ie London, Manchester, Glasgow you get the idea. They should be keen to exchange links with you (apart from the PR0) and should not see you as direct competition.

Just thought I would point out people do add "tunbridge" since it is a place as is "tunbridge wells", and I really dont think google is acting strange your introduction of one more key word has introduced more sites that match the criteria "tunbridge wells" why? because tunbridge wells is a direct address and there are many sites with that in its address which are higher ranked than yours.

Florist tunbridge has 24,500 results
Florist tunbridge wells has 22,900

That figure makes sense since there are people who will just give Tunbridge as a address. Also tunbrige wells will be in a phrase and so they will be given a higher priority than just tunbride and florist whcih wont nessecarily be next to each other. Thus more sites with higher pr are higher than you. At the end of the day the more keywords you add the lower down you will get unless you have a super high ranking which currently you do not. Get links to your site as said above.

Actually, the place without the Wells is TONBRIDGE (pronounced Tunbridge, but spelt with an O) - trust me, I live in T Wells and work in Tonbridge... So you don't get Tunbrige without the Wells unless you've got a dyslexic webmaster.

POPint taken about the PR though - thanks

d'oh! of course it is with an "O" I should know that!!! But you probably would be surprised with the amount of webmasters that would spell it wrong eg I prob would have!

Anyway hope it helped, good luck

[QUOTE=Jamesanderson]Google puts more weight on links than content and any links pointing to a site are considered to be part of the site thus adding extra content with out actually adding any content to the site [QUOTE]


I do have lots of links (about 30 so far), but when I do link:www.darlingandwild.co.uk in the Google search, it only shows two. Are these the only links Google knows about? Or does Google use something else to find the links? The site has only been live for 2 months, so maybe I just need to wait.

Google only shows a few of the backlinks it knows about so it should about more.

Having a quick look through your site I would suggest adding some more content to your home page. This where your links are pointing to and is also considered to have more weight than any other page.

If you follow this link it will show what Google is reading from your home page, cached text only

Notice that you only mention your keyword phrase three times on the page (not including your title). Try and write about 200 - 400 words focusing on your targeted keyword phrase. It will need to flow nicely and not seem like it has been keyword stuffed. break the content down into about three or four paragraghs using your keyword phrase as sub titles. Vary the sub titles slightly and use an H1 tag for the fist title and a couple H2 and H3 tags for the rest.

This will help Google to theme your site, something it has not yet managed to do, similar pages search. This is basic on-page optimisation and should make off-page optimisation (link popularity) easier to conduct.

If you do a allinanchor:"florist tunbridge wells" search on Google, your site is in P1 and would suggest that you have more links with "florist tunbridge wells" as anchors then any other site. This can mean one of two things.

1. You just need to focus on your on-page SEO

2. You have used the same anchor text for too many links and set off one of Googl's link filters. Meaning that the target page is being penalised.

With you only have a small number of links I would find it hard to beleive that it is number 2.

There is one more thing, how old is your site? You have no PR which would normaly mean your in the sandbox (because you have links so PR should be passed) and also how old are your links? Google sanboxes every new link it finds for some time and only when the link reaches a certian age does it pass on any influence. I would guess that your site is not ranking because of both of these reasons.

If it is the sanbox just do a bit of on-page SEO and wait it out .

Hope this helps.

Thanks for taking time to help me out - it is much appreciated. The site is only 2 months old; the links are generally less than 6 weeks old, so I think the site is probably sandboxed at present.

I am very aware of the content issue - I need to resolve this with the florist who is very keen on white space.

Does google actually look in the css file to see how H1,h2,h3 tags are defined? I obviously need to redefine them to fit with the site's look and feel, but don't want to be penalised for this.

Just doing a quick check on the amont of impressions each month (searches made) I came up with these results:

florist tunbridge wells 192
florist in tunbridge wells 35
darling florist tunbridge wells wild 6
florist tunbridge 0

As you can see the first two are the ones to focus on.

Thanks

In the process of reviewing index page content, and comparing it with competitors which appear to be equally text-devoid, I have found this at the bottom of a page 1 competitor's site cached text: (I'm loathe to put the address as it would add more links to what appears to be a sham site)

</body>
<B style="color:black;background-color:#A0FFFF">Tunbridge </B><B style="color:black;background-color:#99ff99">Wells</B> Florists and Flowers, Florists <B style="color:black;background-color:#A0FFFF">Tunbridge </B><B style="color:black;background-color:#99ff99">Wells</B> Kent Flower Delivery say it with flowers and order from the Florists <B style="color:black;background-color:#A0FFFF">Tunbridge </B><B style="color:black;background-color:#99ff99">Wells</B> Flower Shop, Kent Florists delivering Flowers from the Flower Shop to your door. Local deliveries & World Flower Delivery available.</html>

When I view the cached text, this text appears and as it is densely populated with keywords, the site gets a high ranking.

However, viewing the cached page with images/actual page, this text does not appear.

Is this spamming or is it legit?

I am tempted to use something similar, but do not want to be penalised.

Advice please!

PS. I KNOW that the ideal is to have more text on the front page and am working on this. I just need to know whether the above is kosher - it's very hard to persuade a client that they need more text when the first two pages of Google are littered with sites using techniques like the above and consequently they appear to have very little text....