Usually Google does a pretty good job at indexing. Traditionally Google was more interested in capturing as much information from the web as possible.

More recently, it seems as though Google’s policy may have changed - though any existing indexing concerns may be due to Google’s bad data push.

I’ve seen this issue really acutely on a relatively new forum I set up on a relatively established website. So far, Google hasn’t been in at all.

Bad data push, or something restrictive on the website?

Either way, I’m going to do a little experiment here - by listing a couple of the main forum boards, will that help with indexing?

Traditionally it would - but if not, it may well suggest that something new really is at play in terms of Google indexing, which would be a very interesting change indeed.

Here are the boards:

General Investing
Fund Management
Equities

Now let’s test the indexing…

Web directories have a variable reputation in SEO.

On the one hand, they are often regarded as little better than link farms. Even worse, they almost certainly provide “low-trust” links.

Even still, I use directory listings as a strategic part of my overall SEO campaign.

This is not because I want to use directory titles to “link bomb” into listings – but as a key part of a spidering strategy.

Having a search engine friendly site requires that search engines can actually find and index it, and web directories are a way to help ensure a stable of static links that search engines can use to find it.

It also helps raise the overall profile of a website online.

Sometimes the page listings can capture key Longtail searches that – if you are listed prominently enough on – can help expose your target company to human users, and even capture qualified sales leads.

When it comes to SEO strategies, a directory-only approach isn’t going to be a big help for competitive business verticals.

However, when enrolled into a wider SEO campaign utilising multiple strategies, I personally consider it to be an invaluable part of the armoury.

Far too often I see prospective clients only look to rank on Google.

Sure, Google is the most widely used search engine – but if you develop a strategy that only caters for Google, you may be crippling yourself unnecessarily.

Yahoo! and MSN together can capture almost 50% of the search market, so anyone looking to simply target Google may do so at the expense of other search traffic avenues.

This is particularly in the case of businesses that worry most about getting on-topic links, building links gradually, and only links from high PageRank pages.

Not only is this going to shift costs significantly upwards, it can additionally kneecap traffic and sales from other sources.

The bottom line is that if you have a new domain, and are unlikely to rank well in the short-term for Google due to sandboxing – then forget about Google.

Instead, target Yahoo! and MSN to deliver traffic and sales from these search engines primarily for major targeted keywords, while also capturing a lot of Longtail traffic from Google.

Then, when Google finally starts to relax the filters on your domain, you already have a very strong SEO campaign platform to take advantage of this.

The bottom line is that there is that Google is not the only search engine – and those businesses that realise this, are going to be more success than those that don’t.

One of the more recent “crazes” is to write articles to generate links,

It’s not a new method for SEO – it’s as old as the internet. The difference being, as Google becomes more restrictive on ranking criteria, article submissions have become a latest desperate grab for rankings.

The problem here is that while links across a larger number of websites and IP ranges is welcome for link building, the duplicate content issue means that many SEO’s focused on article writing may be negating their own strategy.

This is especially if we presume that when it comes to duplicated content, Google is not going to allow much “juice” to be sent from such pages.

Even an argument that benefits may still exist with duplicated content, the bottom line is that it’s unwelcome.

To help circumvent this, here’s a couple of tips when it comes to writing and submitting articles to third-party websites:

1. Vary your article titles as much as possible

2. Vary the subheadings. You do use keywords subheading in your article, don’t you? If not, you should look to do so.

3. Vary the text where possible – you can even set up a simple script randomise the central paragraphs, so that many of your article submissions will be slightly but significantly different.

4. Vary resource boxes – the information and links they contain – as much as possible. Also ensure you add at least one good deep content link per resource

5. Submit to fewer article sites – less really can be more. By submitting to the best quality article sites out there, not only can you limit the extent of your duplicated content, but you can also ensure the best sites provide the strongest thrust for your links.

As with other linking methods, article writing and submission isn’t going to be an effective strategy all by itself.

However, I do use it to supplement other key SEO strategies in order to create a more stable platform for a SEO campaign.

And also don’t forget that article submissions timed with new content on your own site, could be a way to help improve how fast that is indexed – a key concern in more competitive markets.

The Google Sandbox is an old system.

It was first noticed in April 2004, when volume link builders (such as myself) found that instead of immediate ranking effects from volume link building, as expected, it now took 3 months before those links would impact.

Since then the Google Sandbox has come to encompass a varied range of filters that Google seems to have developed in order to prevent easy manipulation of rankings – with the result that many newer domains have an awful time ranking for major keywords.

If you’re a results-driven person like myself, then it can be initially unnerving. But all is not lost.

For websites with a lot of content (such as informational sites and ecommerce sites) you can still capture a lot of Longtail searches.

I have a client who still is sandboxed for a number of his targeted keywords. However, we capture enough sales from the Longtail traffic to make the SEO campaign more than profitable from him on that basis alone.

However, I’ve recently taken up a new strategy for him to help fight sandboxing.

Instead of just trying to rank his website, I’m now ranking webpages on “trusted” third party sites – on pages dedicated to promoting his products/services.

So far it’s working very well – because the pages are on older and more trusted domains, Google has no problem ranking for those pages for the keywords used in the links.

In just a couple of weeks he captured half of his targeted keywords into Top 10 rankings on this method alone, plus he also has his own site represented in various positions – and all in addition to the capture of sales from Longtail search traffic.

Although ranking third-party sites instead of your targeted website isn’t ideal – not least because it introduces another click between a visitor finding a listing to view, and the destination webpage – it can at least provide a short-term solution to a short-term problem.

In April Google attempted to overhaul their datacenter network with a new way of spidering the web, with a specific aim to save on bandwidth and increase efficiency.

The result was 3 months of Google problems, that Google later put down to a “bad data push”.

Key problems included sites disappearing from Google, or only having a few pages listed instead of the proper number of pages.

To many webmasters, this was a serious problem that they have been relieved to see finally rectified for the most part.

However, a loss of site inventory in search isn’t necessarily a bad thing – it can even be an opportunity.

Specifically, to dare to rewrite URLs without having to worry too much about loss of traffic – when the traffic is already lost.

Rewriting URLs can be anything from straightforward to unnervingly complex, depending on how you approach it. A good rewrite solution to make pages search engine friendly should be able to cater most needs.

But oftentimes the main headache is redirecting the old URLs afterwards. Sometimes – on sites with thousands of pages – it requires such a comprehensive set of redirects that often the easiest way to deal with it is to simply apply the rewrite solution and then hope the search engine catch up on displaying the right pages, without losing too many users.

That’s where a “bad data push” can be taken advantage of – if your URLs aren’t exactly how you want them to be, then applying a new rewrite solution to your website is a way to add pain to pain to end up with a satisfactory solution.

Then when Google comes back in with full indexing, it’s your new URLs that it will pick up, having lost your old URLs anyway.

It’s not an ideal situation, of course – no one really wants to lose traffic – but at least there are times when a loss of traffic can be taken advantage of to apply new solutions to old problems – so that once your website recovers, you can better exploit it’s potential for search engine optimisation processes.