Hi, I purchased a website a few months back, it is an online multiplayer gaming site thats completely free to play. I have made loads of improvements to functions and design of the site and worked on the server side too, this is about as far as my skills go (and those who help with it all). However, the problem is when i took over weplayhere.com is was a PR7 site and was ranked quite highly. Now it is PR3! I really need a beginners guide here on the things I should be doing to making it more search engine friendly and increasing the PR of it. SEO is something I have never dealt with, so I am keen to learn the tricks of the trade aswell as getting the site back to its former glory. Member wise its not really affected the numbers, we have had 50,000 new sign ups in 3 months, and no sign of that slowing. Thanks for any help or advice you may be able to offer me. Gregg
With SEO you are going to get a lot of different opinions. I will boldly state, that PR is not a huge factor. Have your search engine results changed? What are the major keywords? The only thing PR is good for is an indication of the amount of Links that are coming to that site (minmus out-bound links). Nothing much more than that, under the current Google Algoritym. Has your traffic been effected? doesn't appear that your sign-ups have, therefore forget about the little green Bar of PR unless you are losing SERP and traffic. If I where you I would resreach your competition, and compare there Serps, and work on an SEO stradgey to improve your SERP positions for your keywords using WHITE HAT Standard SEO technigues. Page Rank is such a mis-communication and falicy, that so many people are hooked up on the grreen page rank bar, while missing out on the true aspects of SEO and opimizing there pages effectively. Yes, Links are important, but the physical Page rank Count assigned by Google's tool bar and directory doesn't count for a hill of bean in SERPS or traffic. Those selling Links and bartering Links for PR..those are the ones that will cry Loudly and Often. I await the bashing and please provide the evidence of PR effecting the SERP of a Keyword. There are tons of cases where Higher PR's are outside of top ten results. The SERP or algo has many factors and PR just doesn't matter any more SEOCHat Forum and This site if you take the time read should provide you with proper answers. ( hopefully) Eric Bigebiz!!
Thanks, yeah I was aware that the PR doesnt really affect the SERP but was still concerned that I have lost so much PR and that is a visable thing for me. The previous owners have not SEO the site, its a multiplayer gaming website but is not ranked in google for "multiplayer games". To me this is the keyword to target but how I crack it, or even target it, I dont know.
Is PR == $$$, not necessarily. If your signups are good, why worry. But, searching DP for 'SEO' and reading articles will put you on the right path.
I guess I dont want to be short sighted. Traffic is just as good as the day I got the site, but if in a couple months time it drops then I am in trouble. Would rather put something in place now to ensure that I can cope with links being removed from other sites. Plus more members cant hurt. I will do a search bust was hoping someone could point me in right direction for articles or offer me some advice. Thanks