getting better rankings for deeper pages

hi

forgive me for asking yet another noob question:

after digesting large amounts of info and asking alot of questions i seem to have finally got my index page to begin creeping up in ranking - this i attribute mainly too the increasing amount of links that i have for it (my index page) - however i don't seem to be making any progress on my keyphrases that are on my other pages -

i guess that big sites will gain better rankings on deeper pages as they will have larger amounts of internal links pointing to these pages - however my site is at most 43 pages -
- so far the only thing i can think of is to get IBLs to these pages - but it doesn't really seem appropriate to get IBLs to my other pages

will the ranking of my deeper pages follow behind the rank of my index page? (ie if i carry on getting links for my index page will the other pages increase in ranking?)
what possible ways are there of getting better rankings for my other pages?

 

Do your internal pages have PageRank? PR is updated less frequently, and I totally disagree with anyone that says that PR does not matter. It matters. Your internal pages need to have PageRank to rank high. You probably need to wait for another PR update.

 

PR is calculated- and the effects of that are evident in the serps- long before each "PR update."

the PR update is only the making of the (updated) PR public. you WON'T see a jump in your serps the second you finally have PR. it doesn't work like that.

 

Digust is correct.

The question I have is why are you concerned with the interior pages? Most of us are happy if we can get our home page well placed in the SERPs. This is the entrance to the rest of the site. So if you can get people here, and your navigation is good, they will find the rest of the site. The problem with trying to get every page well placed in the SERPs is that you are diluting your effort and you may end up with none of your pages particularly well placed.

The only exception to this may be large site with widely diverging content or categories. Then you may want to try and get the top page or "home page" for each category optimized and well placed in the SERPs, But at 43 pages your site doesn't sound like that. And nobody has every page in the site in the top ten.

 

Why after 56 posts are you concerned about this. Nobody has jumped on you for your "noob" questions before. Just ask the damn question and don't bother prefacing everyone with that "noob" statement.

 

Nohaber,

99% of what you post is dead on -- as opposed to myself who is only 98% correct . But I have to disagree with you on the roll of PR in SERP placement.

Here are the facts.

1. If you have a lot of IBL with good anchor text you will place well in the SERPs.

2. If you have lots of links you will generate a high page rank number.

3. As a result of 2. many pages that place high in the SERPs have a high PageRank.

4. The proof of the fact that they are not there because of their PR rank, is the fact that you will often find PR4 pages placed in the SERP before PR6 or PR7 pages. If PR is the driver as you suggest that would not happen.

Look at these results for a search on "online pharmacies" http://www.seochat.com/?go=1&option..._mode=relevance&num=20&submit=PageRank+Search

The page in 6th place is a PR4. It is ahead of a bunch of PR6 and PR7 that follow. This just wouldn't be possible if PR was the prime driver you claim it is.

 

Here is an even more graphic example http://www.seochat.com/?tool=7&opti...esult_mode=relevance&num=20&btnG=+++Search+++

#1 = PR7
#2 = PR5
#3 = PR8

And there are more PR8s further down in the results.

Why aren't all the PR8s in the top positions? Simple. PR does not get you SERP placement. There really can't be any arguement. The facts speak for themselves.

 

This is nonsense, I have a great number of pages ranking from 10 to 1 on G and they show no page rank in G. The bar is grey. PR is meaningless, it's the quality and structure of your content as well as good use of your meta-tags (I know, I know). It's not fool proof, but this notion of having to have pagerank to be high in the serps is total bunk.

http://www.google.com/search?q=460+engine

My pages have almost no ibl's from outside the site and they still rank 1 & 2. (at least at the time of this post) Granted, it's not super competitive, but considering I have done nothing but create the content and made #1, it's not to shabby.

 

mopacfan,

You and Nohaber are talking about apples and coconuts. "460 Engines" is a really uniques and very non competitive search term. According to Wordtracker there are 0 searches per day for that term and according to Overture there are 3.5 per day. You are #1 on content only.

When we respond to questions like the ones in this thread we assume some basic popularity and competitiveness for the search terms. Your site is the exception, not the rule.

While I don't agree that what you need is PR, I do agree that what is generally needed is lot of IBLs.

 

Sorry - its just my way of trying to be polite

 

That was just an example I took from the top of my k/w list, it may not have been the best example, but an example none the less.

http://www.google.com/search?q=ford+superduty
106,000 / #5
wordtracker: 78 / Overture: 24

http://www.google.com/search?q=onboard+air
1,350,000 / #8
wordtracker: 44 / Overture: 4

Again, these are just examples. They may not be highly competitive, but it completely refutes the notion that a page has to have pr to rank well.

So now we're more like peaches and nectarines

 

i have learnt all i know about SEO from reading internet articles and also a bit by asking questions (mainly here) - most of the things i have read say things like - "make a list of your keyphrases and use 2-4 on each page" "the more pages with the more content - the better" - "make all your page titles different" etc etc - i have even read articles saying that "sites where the index page ranks higher than the internal pages are the exception" it seemed from this that all the pages in the site were equally important - never did i come across anytihng saying - "depending on what kind of site you have you may not need to bother trying to optimise the rest of your site" - i wish i had - it would have saved me alot of time faffing aobut trying to write optimised copy on every page of my site

-- i didn't realise that the majority of people just aim at optimise their index page.

 

I'm glad you mentioned that.

I have a very new site that is an online encyclopedia, http://omniknow.com. It is a marriage of the Wikipedia open-source encyclopedia and the dmoz open-source directory, but creating, so far as I can see, a new combination that is value added compared to either resource alone.

It is, like a real, physical encyclopedia, simply organized alphabetically by topic name. There is thus no way to point at this or that page in links, save perhaps links from sites interested in a given topic, and that, I think, will take quite some time to come.

I have done what the limited resources available to me allow in providing links from other sites I control, though of course they don't show yet anywhere.

It strikes me as difficult to get backlinks for such a thing, save perhaps on its real value as a general resource, because I don't have much to give back. I could, I suppose, put up a page of "supporting sites" to provide reciprocals to any who link to the front page (which, I suppose, might be worth something to people in time if the thing does ever lumber off the ground, what with over half a million pages).

I welcome any thoughts on how to popularize this guy. (Checking "online encyclopedias" in Google suggests to me that it is a search term for which page 1 is a distinct possibility.)

I am considering what I deduce some sites that collect search results and similar fake-bulk padding have done, which is to comb the listing pages for sites referenced there and email-ask each politely for a return link, with some honest explanation of the resource. Or is that simply spam?

All suggestions are welcome.

 

it really really depends on the sort of site you have.

are there keywords that might related to internal pages? then it's probably worth optimizing for them. if there aren't, then there isn't much you CAN to do optimize them.

 

I generally agree with this. However, I noticed something once, namely: after adding a sitewide link from site A to another site B to boost B's PR (for selling links), I noticed that I got an across-the-board drop in the SERPS. Not a big drop - but noticeable nonetheless. The drop was most noticeable on pages/phrases on which I hadn't bothered to get any IBL's. The terms on which there were a lot of focused anchor text were basically untouched.

So one possible conclusion from this is that PR in and of itself is a factor, but a weakly weighted one. And that IBL's with focused anchor text will outweigh the pure PR effect. In a competitive industry the pure-PR benefit will be basically zero, but for less-common stuff like the examples above, it may well tip the balance. In those cases on-page factors are more likely to make a big difference as well.

 

Trying to be polite is most welcome. Just take into account that it's easy to piss compar off and be yourself.

With internal pages I suggest ensuring the anchor text you link to them with from within your site is the same as the search phrase on which you would like to be found. If this makes your menu look screwy, link again in your footer or body content.

One way of getting links to your internal pages is to start a blog, and there you have what is essentially another site for free from which you can link to your internal pages with the anchor text required as much as you want.

all you have to do to get it spidered is add it to your signature file in a forum or list your blog in a blog directory.

Also there are a few of us exchanging links to our sites via blogs at the moment and the pr of the blog is irrelevant as it's an anchor text building exercise. You might want to become involved in that.

Also, we are trying to get links from many different sites to an experiment on McDar's site, here you might be able to get a link to an internal page by joining in.

Ranking internal pages is very doable with your site but you will need links directly to the internal pages from a different url which use the anchor text you want to rank on. We have 3 sites and 3 blogs so thats how we do it, plus links from other sites.

The MSN small business directory and bluefind directory will link to your internal pages if you can afford to pay their fee. MSN would probably be better suited to your needs as it give lots of links to internal pages.

Also, when exchanging links you can ask for a link to any page, not just your homepage.

But as mentioned, if you aren't winning the war on the term your homepage is focused on, don't dilute you efforts too much.

It is wise to focus on one search term per page and you focus on your most compeditive phrase with the homepage as it is easier to get links to the homepage.

BTW - in answering your post I feel I have enough info to make a half decent comment on your question (even if it is long winded and all over the shop ), but in terms of being a newbie - I know someone more experienced could post straight after me I would be shown up as knowing a lot less than they do. So forget being a newbie - you are a welcome contributor IMO.

Everyone is here to learn from eachother and no matter how new you think you are you have some experience to draw upon and no matter how experienced you are - we all are open to someone providing a pearl of wisdom simply because they have the benefit of another perspective.

 

It is an annoying statement. Everytime I see it I'm tempted to tell you that it is a "noob" question. You're among friends here. There is no need for artifical "politeness".

 

Also remember that is very easy to amuse compar. That's a wonderful statement IROTFLMAO.

But I will admit that I dislike any kind of artifice and after 56 posts to continue to use that "noob" disclaimer seem artificial to me. Just ask the question and get on with it.

 

Well now we need to talk about what is meant by optimization. From a content point of view I do not think optimization is any different than just a well designed and written page. Maybe you will work your keywords in a few extra times, but if you are an experienced web copy writer you will do this anyway. The title should always reflect the content of the page or it really isn't a title for that page. The same applies to the meta description and the on page headings.

So a well designed page is optimized for content and on-page factors as far as I'm concerned. So when we talk about optimizing internal pages, in my mind we are talking about collecting IBL to these pages. It is this issue that I think most people do not worry about, at least until their home page is firmly in the top ten and they can devote time and effort to some of the interior pages. And even then not all of them but only category type pages.