Hey all! I've just launched a funny t-shirt site "Shirt Fight" (http://www.shirtfight.com) and I'm starting to do SEO, focusing on the keyphrase "funny t-shirts" I've always been of the opinion that the best first step is to size up your competition...really see what they're doing to get high search engine ranks. Most of the sites i've been researching are pretty self explanatory as to why they rank so high, but two of them really stand out: bustedtees.com and cottonfactory.com Case #1: Bustedtees (google rank 3 for funny t-shirts) Ok, their main page they mention "funny t-shirts" twice on their main page, both in some form of title tags: <meta name="title" content="Busted Tees - Jokes you can wear! Funny T-Shirts!" /> <title>Busted Tees - Jokes you can wear! Funny T-Shirts!</title> other than that, there's NO site text that mentions funny t-shirts at all. I check Alexa and they have 371 backlinks to them...but by doing a sample check, not many of them have "funny t-shirts" in the link text Case #2: Cottonfactory (google rank 7 for funny t-shirts) This one REALLY baffles me. Not ONCE on their site do they mention "funny t-shirts", with the exception of a "link directory" they have tucked away in their site (looks like a reciprocal link list to other t-shirt sites in the form of a directory...which also baffles me because one would think it would be a BAD idea to link to your competitors, am i right?) They are actually geared very heavy to the "Vintage t-shirts" keyphrase, which they are #1 on google for that keyphrase. Alexa shows a measly 63 backlinks, each of them with Vintage t-shirts in the link text...no funny to be seen! So if you gurus could shed some light on this i would greatly appreciate it...it's been a few years since I've played the Google game, and I can see all the rules have changed Thanks! Jud El Presidente, shirtfight.com
Jud, If you Google link:www.cottonfactory.com that after themselves the third highest ranking link is http://www.sweetoutfits.com/gymlinks1.html. In their link text the very first phrase is "funny t-shirts". This page has a PR 2 and obviously Google thinks it's very relevant.
Hi Nikao, Doing a google search, pretending to be a typical user and just typing funny t-shirts without quotes
I can't find that url at all doing a google link:www.cottonfactory.com search, but I see the backlink if i to that site....but c'mon, ONE link from a PR2 site that has funny t-shirts in the anchor text gives them ranked #7 in google for that term? It's almost like Google doesn't care as much if 'funny t-shirts' is on my site, and it doesn't care if it's in my backlink anchor text, as long as the sites that link to me give google the overall impression that they are about funny t-shirts? I'm officially puzzled
I am seeing 115 backlinks for the cotten factory and after checking one of the links I can see funny t-shirts as the anchor. This is what I hate about Google!!
Hmmmm I think i'm starting to see why they rank #7....there are 66 backlinks that contain the phrase "Funny T-Shirts, Vintage T-Shirts, Retro T-Shirts, Cool T-Shirts at CottonFactory.com", which is their new link text on their link directory. Well it looks like I have my work cut out for me!
The top three sites all have the most links pointing to them with 'funny T-shirts' in the anchor text, check it here http://www.webuildpages.com/cool-seo-tool/ That's why they're ranking.