Our site http://www.hookahhub.com has been open for just over 3 months now. Google has indexed us for many of our top keywords but not our top keyword, "hookah". "hooka" and "shisha" are #2 and #3 but the #1 big kahuna is "hookah" by quite a margin. Currently "hookah" gets over 25,000 Overture/Yahoo searches / month while "hooka" is around 10,000 and shisha around 5,000. If you search for "hookah" I don't even come up at all; nowhere, nada. Yet "hooka" I'm currently #4 and "shisha" #11. This really perplexes me as I'm obviously being indexed on a regular basis, I've optimized the site and appear to be out of the "sandbox". What do you suggest I do?
I don't have a lot of evidence to say this, but I think Google is currently hypersensitive to "over-optimization". On 2 sites I am ranking well for my secondary keywords, but rank poorly for my main keywords.
To my thinking, the real question is how you were able to rate so quickly for hooka. Three months is not much time in Google land. Many, many sites have failed to show in the SERPS for much longer than that. If you keep at it I'm sure you'll gradually show up for your desired term. (Edit to add) - Nice site by the way. Easy to browse and I like your "Learn" section.
Join the co-op and set your inbound ad links to include "hookah" - If I understand correctly Google weighs the content of your inbound link text pretty heavily, this could help. (certainly shouldn't hurt)
Well having been the #1 for "hooka" & "glass bongs" 2 years ago I'm surprised you are getting the results you are. Those words weren't the hardest but they took a little longer then I thought it would. Took me about 6 months to rank and that was under the old google. I recommend checking your competitions backlinks I remember finding quite a few people pulling some nice tricks to get backlinks in that industry. my site used to be pipesandbongs.net. How do you ship your stuff? I got out because everything broke in the mail ruining my profit margin.
My guess is you have included the word hookah too many times on your site at I have a website which matches your products as a link exchange. If you are interested in exchanging links, let me know cheers bceage
Thanks for your great feedback! It's just so strange; it's like they're penalizing you for your top keyword and just let you have the scraps for the first 6 months or so. On a related note, do you think it's worth it to pay $299 to be listed in the Yahoo directory?
with lots of policy updates perhaps Google needs something from your site. or maybe you're over optimizing it. I think they have a rule regarding over optimization.
maybe people who serached 'hooka' or 'shisha' might visited your site more than the those serached for 'hookah'. Cheers