McDar Experiment

Wow Bob, what an offer!!!!!!!!

It will be interesting to see what would happen.

The page url is http://www.mcdar.com/camping1/sleeping-bags.htm

Thanks!

Caryl

 

OK, Googlebot found the page this morning.

 

I'll put up the links right away, but I'd suggest changing your title. I think "Sleeping Bags from McDar" would probably be more effective.

 

Ok the links are in place. Look on the bottom of the page at The InfoPool and on the bottom of each of the articles included in the InfoPool.

 

Bob,

I checked the link on the bottom of the page you linked to and the link did not go to the page. (page not found error)

Could be because you have a "/" after sleeping-bags.htm

 

Thanks I'll fix it. I just cut and pasted that in.


Try it now.

 

PERFECT!!

Thanks so much, Bob. I am really excited to see what kind of results this experiment will yield.

Caryl

 

This thread is wandering all over the place. It has now really become -- How to Optimize an Internal Page. On that vein let's talk about titles.

I am a huge proponent of backlinks and generally devalue the importance of on-page issues. But there is no doubt in my mind that the most important on-page item from Google's point of view is the title.

Therefore, I would argue that if you are optimizing an inner page for a particular keyword, or product in this case, you should put that keyword first in your title. What you want to be indexed for is 'sleeping bags'. So I would change the title as I suggested earlier. Concentrate on branding your company name, if you wish, on the home page, but on product pages use the product name first.

I would change the title to 'Sleeping Bags : McDar Outdoor Gear" or 'Sleeping Bags from McDar Outdoor Gear". Your objective with this page is to sell sleeping bags. You want them to put sleeping bags in the shopping cart, not McDar.

 

Actually, I just changed it to McDar Outdoor Gear - Sleeping Bags. I had it reversed, as you suggested, to begin with.

But, I will change it back right now. I want to give the page every advantage.

Done!

 

Bob,

I think this is a very good thread. It is showing a process from start to finish.

Many folks use different tools in an attempt to gage what needs to be done to a site to improve search engine placement.

I think some see results and do not know how to interpret them.

In this thread we have examined the results of a new tool and discussed what they could possibly mean. It was during this discussion that I had an idea how to test to see if an hypothesis was true.

Now we are in the experiment phase.

What ever the results of the experiment are, valuable information will be imparted.

Knowing what not to do can be as valuable as knowing what to do.

Kinda kewl, I think.

 

Certainly an interesting thread - I was going to offer a PR5 linkback and a bundle of 4s but thought it might complicate things.

The title comment is totally valid - I come from an on page seo position with only self controlled links, and, if they come from outside so be it and have always been able to achieve top positions.

However there is one caveat to this and that is that when you have two equally SEO'd pages then the one with the best link position will win.

BUT when I used the new McDar tool the other day I was gobsmacked by how few bl's were there for other sites - it wasn't in the thousands, it wasn't in the hundreds, it wasn't, in fact, more than a score for a very few, and mostly was in the lower single digits!!!

Equally sites with thousands of pages were not at the number one.

So is it down to quality and that anchor text?

 

Foxy,

I was going to add an interesting observation I have just made. I have an internal page that is optimized for "Nebo Sleeping Bags". It has a PR6 and 119 Google Backlinks. All but one of those backlinks is from internal pages from within the site. ALL of the backlinks have anchor text for either Nebo Sleeping Bags or just plain Sleeping Bags.

So, all 119 backlinks have anchor text with sleeping bags in it.

How does this page rank?

For the search term
Sleeping Bags - position 356, 119 Backlinks, 34 for allinanchor.
Nebo Sleeping Bags - position 1, 119 Backlinks, 1 for allinanchor.

You would think that with 119 backlinks, with the keyword in the anchor, the page would at least place higher in the allinanchor search. The internal links just don't have the strength that external links carry.

It will be interesting to see if the new page, with half the backlinks, (but all being external) passes this page up.

Caryl

 

Foxy,

I will take you up on your offer of backlinks!

But, lets wait and use them after the initial placement of the page. It will be an excellent way to gage just how much effect the added links will make in both the regular search results and allinanchor placement.

This is getting real exciting!

I will certainly I will reciprocate in any way I can.

Thank you!

 

Thats why I held back with the links - keep it simple

By the way what is the title of the page above?
What is the first heading and then the text?

 

The PR5 is the ski site by the way would probably work well in "theme" with the sleeping bags

 

Page Title - Nebo Sleeping Bags

First heading - Sleeping Bags (actually I just changed the heading late yesterday to Nebo Sleeping Bags - but G dosn't know it yet).

 

I thought as much

Thats why you score with the "Nebo Sleeping Bags", as it is in the title, and not with the "sleeping bags" which is not.

Perhaps you need another page just for the "sleeping bags"?

 

That's what he just set up and what I'm linking to. A page called nothing but Sleeping Bags. Here is the link Sleeping Bags

 

Actually, Foxy, if you do a search on Google for sleeping bags, you will find that there are several top sites that do not have Sleeping Bags in the title. In fact the number one page in the results is titled "Camping Accessories, Gear, And Supplies :"

AND a title of Nebo Sleeping Bags does have Sleeping Bags in the title.

I think that, since Florida, keyword proximity has pretty much flown out the window. It is probably the advantage when sites are very close in other factors.

 

Let's now take this thread in yet another direction. Let's talk about keyword phrases and anchor text as Google see them and uses them.

When I first got into this business some time in the last century -- I've always wanted to say that -- it was the general wisdom that there was no such thing as keyword phrases, but only single words. Google seems certainly to have disproved this, or at least changed this. The question is how is Google seeing and parsing keyword phrases?

If you use the keyword phrase 'blue stainless steel widgets' what is Google going to index your page for? In addition to the entire phrase you probably would like to be indexed for:

1. blue widgets
2. stainless steel widgets
3 widgets

But what about

a. blue stainless steel
b. stainless steel
c. steel widgets

Obviously you are not trying to get indexed for a. b. & c. If Google does index you for all those variations it will infact have you indexed for some non-relevant searches. So I think what Google has done is decided to index for the entire phrase to some degree.

Now take the 'nebo sleeping bags' example. I very much doubt that Google would have parsed that phrase and ranked that page for sleeping bags. Because if they had they would also have had to rank the page for 'nebo sleeping'. So the problem with that page was that the title was 'nebo sleeping bags' and Google would not be prepared to conclude that 'sleeping bags' used in anchor text was necessarily relevant to that phrase.

Now everyone will quickly point out that Google will highlight every word on the page that appears in the search term regardless of whether it is stands alone or is used as part of a phrase. I agree they do. But the top pages in the SERP will invariable include the exact keyword term unencumbered by a bunch of modifiers. And the top pages in the SERP will normally have the exact keyword phrase as the first words in their title.