Virtual Imager Posted June 11, 2004 Share Posted June 11, 2004 There's been a lot of discussion about one's ranking on various search engines. How do you find out what your ranking is? VI Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
natimage Posted June 11, 2004 Share Posted June 11, 2004 One way to find out on google, although I don't know if it is recommended or not...is to download the Google toolbar. It works in IE and will tell you your pagerank. You might also check THIS LINK for some information...although I think it is a bit more general. I'm sure there are other tools out there that I don't know about! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TCH-Dick Posted June 11, 2004 Share Posted June 11, 2004 One way to find out on google, although I don't know if it is recommended or not...is to download the Google toolbar. It works in IE and will tell you your pagerank. You might also check THIS LINK for some information...although I think it is a bit more general. I would not use that, check this post for more info why. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Virtual Imager Posted June 11, 2004 Author Share Posted June 11, 2004 OK... so how do these people that say "My site is ranked first in Google and 43rd in whatever" know what their ranking is? And wouldn't they be ranked differently depending on the search phrase? I'm so confused!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TCH-Dick Posted June 11, 2004 Share Posted June 11, 2004 Sorry I should have added that. Use the Google Toolbar Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
natimage Posted June 11, 2004 Share Posted June 11, 2004 Sorry I should have added that. Use the Google Toolbar Dick...wasn't that what I said? The post you referred to was regarding Alexa...I didn't mention Alexa? I'm confused now... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
natimage Posted June 11, 2004 Share Posted June 11, 2004 Yes...VI...sites are definitely ranked differently according to search phrase. I assume those sites/webmasters are indicating that for their chosen keywords, they rank a specific spot. They just don't necessarily tell you what those keywords are. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TCH-Rob Posted June 11, 2004 Share Posted June 11, 2004 OK... so how do these people that say "My site is ranked first in Google and 43rd in whatever" know what their ranking is? And wouldn't they be ranked differently depending on the search phrase? I'm so confused!!! Randy, Don't get page rank confused with placement. For example, when I search the phrase "parts of the katana" I am 6th and 7th for that phrase. That is different than my ranking, using the toolbar from Google I have a page rank of 4 of 10. They are two separate things. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
natimage Posted June 11, 2004 Share Posted June 11, 2004 Thanks for clarifying that, Rob. I probably made it more muddy than necessary!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TCH-Rob Posted June 11, 2004 Share Posted June 11, 2004 Thanks for clarifying that, Rob. I probably made it more muddy than necessary!! Nah, I just think people get confused. I don't have a ton of back links but many of my items place pretty well in the search listings. I can live without a high PR if I have many phrases ranking well in the listings for that term. For me, I don't care how you find my site, be it index or another page. I just want you to find it. Of course I would like a high PR but I would rather know that if you are looking for a max cold 120 cooler that I am on the first page. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TCH-Dick Posted June 11, 2004 Share Posted June 11, 2004 Dick...wasn't that what I said? The post you referred to was regarding Alexa...I didn't mention Alexa? I'm confused now... I think I'm the confused one. I just did not read far enough to get the whole picture but in my own defense, there is a large image linking to Alexa. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Virtual Imager Posted June 11, 2004 Author Share Posted June 11, 2004 Don't get page rank confused with placement. For example, when I search the phrase "parts of the katana" I am 6th and 7th for that phrase. That is different than my ranking, using the toolbar from Google I have a page rank of 4 of 10. They are two separate things. Does the Google Toolbar give you your placement as well? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
natimage Posted June 11, 2004 Share Posted June 11, 2004 I see Dick...it was that link that had Alexa on it. I didn't even know that...copied the link from my favorites. But when I visit the page, I don't pay attention to much else besides my business. Sorry for the confusion! VI...the Google Toolbar will not tell you your placement. However, another tool that will sort of help you with finding your placement is Marketleap's keyword verification tool. Put in your site, then your chosen keyword(s). Run the test and what you'll get is a list of search engines telling you whether or not your site placed in the top 3 pages of that search engine. It runs for 10 different search engines. Unfortunately, it won't tell you if you are on page 6 or 50...only if you are on 1, 2 or 3. This and the keyword tracker in my first post are pretty helpful in tracking how your site is doing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Virtual Imager Posted June 11, 2004 Author Share Posted June 11, 2004 One way to find out on google, although I don't know if it is recommended or not...is to download the Google toolbar. It works in IE and will tell you your pagerank. You might also check THIS LINK for some information...although I think it is a bit more general. I would not use that, check this post for more info why. I thought you were saying not to use the Google toolbar... realize now it was only Alexa you were warning us about. Thanks Tracy, Rob and Dick... I'm starting to get a handle on it now. I went to Marketleap and placed on page 1 of Google, Netscape, AOL and one other engine for "virtual conceptions." Now all I have to do is get people to search that phrase. I need lots of help in the other phrase categories! Well, at least I know what to work on. VI Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deverill Posted June 11, 2004 Share Posted June 11, 2004 Another very useful free tool is at www.digitalpoint.com/tools/keywords/ which gives you a keyword rank and a backlink rank with daily/weekly/monthly changes. By the way - PageRank is not a good thing to focus on. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Virtual Imager Posted June 11, 2004 Author Share Posted June 11, 2004 OK....now I'm REALLY confused. Why is page rank not a good thing to focus on. If I'm selling digital art and people are searching the phrase 'digital art,' isn't it good for my page to be ranked high and be among the first ones displayed in the search results???? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TCH-Rob Posted June 11, 2004 Share Posted June 11, 2004 OK....now I'm REALLY confused. Why is page rank not a good thing to focus on. If I'm selling digital art and people are searching the phrase 'digital art,' isn't it good for my page to be ranked high and be among the first ones displayed in the search results???? Randy dear, That is not Page Rank. That is "phrase rank" as to where it comes up in the search listings. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Virtual Imager Posted June 12, 2004 Author Share Posted June 12, 2004 OK....now I'm REALLY confused. Why is page rank not a good thing to focus on. If I'm selling digital art and people are searching the phrase 'digital art,' isn't it good for my page to be ranked high and be among the first ones displayed in the search results???? Randy dear, That is not Page Rank. That is "phrase rank" as to where it comes up in the search listings. Oh. I give up. Page rank, placement, phrase rank, keyword rank, backlinks, text links... I just want to know what I should do to help people find me better. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deverill Posted June 12, 2004 Share Posted June 12, 2004 Ok, here's the common terms and meanings: PR - PageRank - Google's unique measure of how popular your site is, and thus theoretically how good it is, based on the number and types of links back to your site. This is a scale from 0 to 10 with 10 being the best. SERP - Search Engine Results Page - usage: SERP Rank - This is where you turn up on a search for a given keyword phrase. It is best to try to get #1 on the search engines when a customer types "blue widgets" if that's what you sell. The first page is good. After that is not so good. Now, as to why PageRank (PR) is not something to be overly concerned about: Google is the only one using it. It is rumored to be losing its power at Google, possibly because of some issues over who really owns the PR algorithm. If you build your sites for the visitor and have good information there others will link to it automatically. If you try to get more links then go for it - don't only seek links from sites that are only PR4 or higher because next week they may be PR8. If you chase PR you will become crazy and you will miss out on all the benefits of creating a great site. For instance, Google has PR10 (some argue it's 11) but if you go to MSN and search on the term "search engine", Google only comes in at #4. What about all those customers? Another thing is that if you search "grill equipment" the #1 site has no PR rank and the #3 has a PR3, #4 is PR3, #5 is PR0 and #6 has a PR of 2. Results #14 and #15 have PR5 which I am sure they fought hard to get but what did it do for them - it's on the 2nd page! There are better things to work on than PR. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deverill Posted June 12, 2004 Share Posted June 12, 2004 I just want to know what I should do to help people find me better. Find the phrases that they will most likely use to find a site such as yours and make it #1 in the search engines. Ok, that's oversimplified. The key thing is to find phrases people will be using when they should find you. "Virtual conceptions" is not something that anyone will ever search on, I'm afraid. Maybe "altered reality photos" or "conceptual artwork" or "photoshopped pictures" or something - it's not my area of knowledge - but you'll need to find the right phrases to go after. When you do that you can use tools like overture's pay per click (PPC) tool or wordtracker or one of the other tools to find out if that phrase is going to be searched on and if it's got a bazillion others there already. Keep in mind that these tools are all subjective and should be used as guidelines only. After you have your best keyword phrases try to make your page emphasize them without making it look stupid. Put the phrase in the title and in a header tag and maybe even bolded but don't make people crazy with it when they read your site. Then get links to you - as many as you can - and especially ones that are from sites in a related area as yours. A gallery would be primo - a shrimp house would help but not as much. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Virtual Imager Posted June 12, 2004 Author Share Posted June 12, 2004 Thanks, Jim, for that clarification. I see what you mean. Any tips on getting ranked higher in the SERP? I don't have a lot of text on my pages (hardly any, in fact). Should I load up on the descriptions and keywords in the HTML? It seems that most people who find me via search engine, do so by way of the Alt Text in my images (the Image Titles are wha I use for the Alt Text). Should I expand the Alt Text for each image? Maybe add a blurb about the image? I just added some keywords to the Page Titles... will that help? I'm trying to get more sites to link to me too. Anything else I should be doing? BTW... I'll be in Key West in a couple of weeks... I'll try to track you down and say hi... edit: looks like our posts crossed and you read my mind! Randy (VI) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deverill Posted June 12, 2004 Share Posted June 12, 2004 (edited) High ranking is an entire science unto itself and I'm no Albert Einstein in the field so I'll say this: Content is a great thing. It helps your visitors get information and it helps the search engines figure out what you are so they can tell the right people. I'd definitely put as much text as makes sense on the pages as it fits your design. I'd not write entire paragraphs into alt descriptions but put a sentence or two about the images as appropriate. Make sure you targeted phrases appear in the site. For instance, when I knew less than I do now I thought I was optimizing for "Key West fishing" but I had the title of "Key West is the best fishing" which is not my target phrase! On engines like Yahoo, the elements of the page are very important. Those being things like the Title, Header Tags (H1, H2, etc), bold text, etc. On Google they are not as important but should still be there. The meta tags are used on some but not really heavily on any. Put the Keywords and Description ones in there but don't stress too much about them. Remember, the Meta Description is what some search engines use for the description of your site on their results pages. Make it a great site for your visitors and it will be a good site on the engines. A little tweeking will help it be great on them too. Also, don't chase only Google... there are tons of people on other engines and Google is acting stupid (and has been for awhile). By the way, look me up by all means! It would be fun to meet another TCHer in person. Edited June 12, 2004 by TCH-Jim Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
natimage Posted June 12, 2004 Share Posted June 12, 2004 Hopefully I'm not repeating Jim as I only did a fast read through the posts. Sorry, Jim!! Just don't feel much like reading tonight! A few specific things I've learned recently: 1. Definately use your target phrase in your page title. Will help a little with some engines, a lot with others, and it won't hurt anything at all. 2. <h1> and <h2> tags tend to be given special "relevance" weight in most of the search engines. So, use your primary keyword phrases in those tags. 3. If possible, have some section of content (preferably that <h1> tag with your keyword phrase) toward the top of the page. The idea being that the closer to the top or bottom of a page something is, the more important it is. I don't know how much weight this carries, but I'm pretty sure it carries enough to be worth mentioning! There's lots more to go into getting good placement, as Jim explained. It is a science unto itself...and one that's always changing. But what he and Rob said about placement vs rank...I agree with 100%. If you were trying to sell marketing space on your site, it might be a different story...MIGHT. Get that placement and you'll be sittin' pretty. And don't forget...placement can change VERY frequently. Track it and the changes you make to your site and you'll get a good grip on it. HMMM...sounds like I should take my own advice..... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
natimage Posted June 12, 2004 Share Posted June 12, 2004 I'm jealous...I wanna meet Jim...Jim's my friend.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deverill Posted June 12, 2004 Share Posted June 12, 2004 It's ok Tracy... there's enough of me to go around. As far as tracking your placement and changes, just don't make yourself crazy trying to track it too closely. They change the rules almost daily at the search engines so you may think you did something terrible and it may just be today that Google recalculates all the sites that begin F-H or something. Again, it's worth repeating, don't just focus on Google either. My humble opinion is that they are making themselves less desirable by their recent actions and may soon lose their dominance if they aren't careful. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deverill Posted June 12, 2004 Share Posted June 12, 2004 OH, Rankwhere.com is another site that tells you your placement on Alexa, Google, Altavista, MSN, Inktomi, Lycos and Alltheweb. It's a pretty nice tool for an overall picture. Don't accept it as gospel either. It's just a tool that may or may not be accurate. I don't know if they are having a bad day or if they are being blocked, but for one term I'm #1 on Altavista but this tool says I'm not in the top 100. At least it's good for the ones it does tell you about. Welcome to the ever changing world of SEO. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
annie Posted June 12, 2004 Share Posted June 12, 2004 I rank first for a specific keyword in both Altavista and MSN, yet rankwhere tells me I'm not in the top 100 results for those two search engines! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BluegrassGardener Posted November 22, 2004 Share Posted November 22, 2004 VI...the Google Toolbar will not tell you your placement. However, another tool that will sort of help you with finding your placement is Marketleap's keyword verification tool. Put in your site, then your chosen keyword(s). Run the test and what you'll get is a list of search engines telling you whether or not your site placed in the top 3 pages of that search engine. It runs for 10 different search engines. Unfortunately, it won't tell you if you are on page 6 or 50...only if you are on 1, 2 or 3. This and the keyword tracker in my first post are pretty helpful in tracking how your site is doing. I tried the Marketleap keyword verification tool and it shows us Placed: NO when we certainly come up on the second page for that keyword. This tool could obviously use some tweaking also. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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