My Google Search Results are Horrible!

@Collegekid19May 12.2008

Hello everyone,

if you search for my site on google, the search results are terrible!

The description is awful… It lists some sub page on my site with code in it. I added meta tags but they don’t seem to be doing much of anything… maybe because I added them after my search engine was crawled? I dunno.

Could some one give me some pointers on how to make my google search result show up better and look more professional ??

the site is sandwichreport.com

please google it and help me out!

THANKS!

PS….
alot of my posts from webdeveloper.com, where I included my URL, show up in some of the search results. I love this community but I would prefer if questions about my sites’ functionality that I posted in these forums did not appear in the google search results. Do I have any control over that?

to post a comment

SEO

16 Comments(s) _↴

@NoobieCoderMay 12.2008 — #When a search engine finds your page, it will need to index it (that is, add it to its searchable database) with some information off the page. Many search engines now support the <META> tags, which allow you to give keywords and a description to your page. This gives you more control over how your page will show up during a search, and will often cause more traffic to your page.

The <META> tag can be used for a few different purposes. Usually, you should place the <META> tag within the <head> tags at the beginning of your document. To improve search engine results, we will use two specific attributes within the meta tag. Here is an example:

<meta name="description" content="description of page goes here">

<meta name="keywords" content="keywords go here">

When a user searches a search engine that supports meta tags and they query a phrase (search for a keyword) related to your page, your page may show up in the list of results. Your page will be listed by its Title, and then underneath its title will be the first hundred or so characters of the description you placed in the meta tag. It is recommended that you keep the description content to no more than 200 characters. Although the keywords content is not seen by the user when searched, it is recommended to keep this less than 1000 characters, because if you have more the search engine will either ignore the rest or delete you from the index. (Commas are not needed to separate keywords)

Example of a real-life meta situation...

<html>

<head>

<title>Little Joe's Sound Page</title>

<meta name="description" content="Joe's Collection of Cool Sound files for you to use in your home page!">

<meta name="keywords" content="music sounds midi wav joe collection">

</head>

<body>

Page Goes Here

</body>

</html>

Meta tags are not visible in the web page unless the user selects to 'view source'.

SOURCE http://www.davesite.com/webstation/html/chap15.shtml

GIVE CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE ?

@Collegekid19authorMay 12.2008 — #I did exactly what you described! Still no luck.

@NoobieCoderMay 12.2008 — #let me google your page and get back to you

@NoobieCoderMay 12.2008 — #Have you done a similar search for sandwich sites and checked out there meta tags? It should give you a good idea what works?

@Collegekid19authorMay 12.2008 — #Well right now under the description its giving random information from my website and not the brief description I included in my title meta tag.

I'll worry about search rankings when I get to that bridge. For right now I just want my listing to look less sloppy on google.

@Collegekid19authorMay 12.2008 — #please google sandwichreport.com

@NoobieCoderMay 12.2008 — #try this

<head>

<title>Sandwich Report.com</title>

<meta name="KEYWORDS" content="sandwich report sandwichreport sandwichreport.com clubs club reubens gyros kilbasa hoagie hoagies sandwiches" />[/QUOTE]
You can add keywords in here (less is more because too much is just SPAM) ?

Then add this again this can be changed to suit what you want
<meta name="DESCRIPTION" content="Sandwich Report dot com the best sandwich review on the internet" />

<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"/>[/QUOTE]

Let me know how it works for you, I think you misspelled content on your Description tag this may have something to do with your results ?

@tracknutMay 12.2008 — #If you're looking specifically at Google, Google does not use meta-tags for page ranking. They ignore them completely, to my knowledge. You may even be getting hit in a negative way for all the ocurrences of the word "sandwich" in those tags.

Also, when did you last update the "description" tag on the home page? If that was done fairly recently, it could be that Google simply hasn't re-indexed your site, which is why you still show up with your "coming soon" message.

Dave

@WebJoelMay 14.2008 — #<meta name="keywords" content="sandwichreport.com, sandwich report.com, sandwich report, the sandwichreport,

the sandwich report, thesandwichreport.com, the sandwichreport.com, the sandwich report.com, sandwiches, deli sandwiches,

sub sandwiches, subway, quiznos, fastfood, hoagie, grinder, cheese steak, turkey sandwich, roast beef sandwich,

italian sub, deli, new york deli, los angeles deli>[/quote] This is what 'spam' look like: "SandwichReport.com, SandWich Report.com, Sand WichReport.com Com (etc etc etc). -How many ways are you trying to think this?

(and above, is missing the trailing [I][B]double-quote[/B][/I], which messes-up the NEXT meta-data tag..)

Noticed:
<h1><a href="http://www.sandwichreport.com"></a></h1>[/quote] Is wasted. Without *something* in the anchor in the way of TEXT, this is just 'a hyperlink'.

Try:<h1 title="[B]SandwichReport.com[/B]"><a href="http://www.sandwichreport.com">[B]SandwichReport.com[/B]</a></h1>[/quote] You want your first, second and third-level headers at least (H1, H2 and H3) to have GOOD markup. ?

And probably THE MOST IMPORTANT tag in the means for getting indexed, rated and searched, is missing in your page:

"[B]<title>Sandwichreport.com</title>[/B]"

the "TITLE" tag is VERY important, and the missing double-quotes of the above-cited META, is nullifying the next tag... the TITLE. It is

when the next double-quote occurs that the implicit-closure of META is read, but you've missed TITLE

@tracknutMay 14.2008 — #Nice catch, Joel

Dave

@WebJoelMay 15.2008 — #And these days, putting your targeted keywords in a META is advertising to your competitors what keywords are are being used. Maybe you're focusing upon "sandwich" but the USER is typing in "hoagie". Putting "hoagie" in a META tag lets your competitor know what is working for you and they can steal it.

Better to use an analytic and see what rank your keywords are, and use [I]those words[/I] more 'inline' in the site and forgo the META tag route... META is like 10-years out of vogue (even though some sites still glance at them).

@Collegekid19authorMay 17.2008 — #Thanks Joel,

Your replies were very helpful and I will use all of your suggestions. You clearly are knowledgeable about SEO.

One thing...

The H1 header you mentioned is a link that was used in the original theme to display the title of the website. I wanted to change the look of the theme so instead of that heading link, I decided to use an image instead. I've removed the h1 heading from my code because it was not serving any purpose as you mentioned.

How can I improve my script for SEO without having that H1 link that I don't really need for the look of my site? Could I replace it with something without changing the current look of my site?

Thanks again for your help.

@SEO_guruMay 24.2008 — #Collegekid

These are some great suggestions here so far. If you really want to take it to the next level though, be willing to do all you can for the top thirteen factors involved:

[B][FONT=Verdana]1. KEYWORD RESEARCH

2. TITLE TAG CONTENT

3. META KEYWORDS (yes there is value in using this field!)

4. META DESCRIPTION

5. ROBOTS.TXT FILE

6. ALT TAGS

7. LINKS

8. PAGE CONTENT

9. BOLD, HEADER TEXT, STRONG, BULLET POINTS

10. IN-CONTENT LINKING

11. GOOGLE, YAHOO and MSN SITEMAPS PROGRAM

12. SEARCH ENGINE SUBMISSION

13. LINKS BACK

Every one of these has it's own rules, limits, and relationship to all the others. It's not rocket science, but it takes time and patience. The details are too long to go into here so check out my White Hat SEO Fundamentals blog page where I get into specifics on all of these.

[/FONT][/B]

@Collegekid19authorMay 28.2008 — #GURU you are the man. God Bless you.

@SEO_guruMay 28.2008 — #Glad to help CK - I became an expert because of those who came before me sharing freely so I just pass along in kind.

@SEO_guruMay 28.2008 — #PS - the Keyword Research is the hinge-pin - finding quality "phrases" (not using single keywords) is the single most important task you will ever do in SEO - everything else flows and relates to and with those phrases. So check out my blog for tips and pointers on how to choose phrases wisely (the White Hat SEO Fundamentals page gives great insight) and invest the time - it will be well worth it.

Also in #SEO _↴

What is Dwell Time in SEO Anti virus I want to do SEO, SMO and Web Development projects

Success!

Help @Collegekid19 spread the word by sharing this article on Twitter...

Tweet This

My Google Search Results are Horrible!

16 Comments(s) _↴

Also in #SEO _↴

Success!

Social

Version

My Google Search Results are Horrible!

16 Comments(s) ↴

Also in #SEO ↴

Success!

The web is an endless sea of information. Don't miss the boat... Subscribe!

Social

Version

16 Comments(s) _↴

Also in #SEO _↴