Site is established..yet only a few hundred pages indexed..what gives?

Hey all,

I have a PR5 site, http://www.volconvo.com, and if I am correct google only has about 750 pages indexed. What do you think is going on? I have a huge archive with thousands of topics and it does not seem to be grabbing them. I went to one of my close compeititors who also uses a vbulletin and google has indexed about 75,000 of his.

Any ideas? Any observations?

Thanks.

 

Not sure. The only thing that immediately jumped out at me was the 60+ sponsored links in the footer of every page. What's with that? And many are to questionable pharm/casino sites. I don't have any experience with penalties due to this type of thing ... but like I said ... it was the first/only thing that really jumped out at me from a 2 minute look around.

 

Yea, I used SEOMOZ and it does not look like I am being penalized.

The sponsors are a recent development. I wonder why my thousands of topics/posts are not being indexed.

 

Have you tried seaching for exact phrases within the pages that do not show as being indexed?

Are you submitting a Goggle sitemap?

 

Having outbound links like that isn't going to matter.

But...what does matter is the way you have your forum setup. Those URLs are vey search engine un-friendly. Those are the type of URLs that end up in the Supplemental Results database at GOOG.

Do a Mod_rewrite in your .htaccess file to make those URLs much more appealing. Once you get those pages re-written, purchase a .edu link and you'll have all your new URLs indexed and cached in no time.

 

Hmmm, is it the general opinion that .edu (and probably .gov) links are inherently worth more?

 

Yes, their link quality is worth more.

 

Hmm..

Thanks for this advice. I think I'll use these instructions: http://www.daniweb.com/tutorials/tutorial9379.html to do what you suggested.

Oh and do you mean buy a .edu and forward it to volconvo.com?

 

I'm not sure about DaniWeb's tutorial, didn't use it. I had one of my programmer's use http://forum.time2dine.co.nz/seo-vbulletin/search-engine-optimize-vbulletin-98.html to format the URLs. But give DaniWeb's a try. Post it here when you're finished and let's see how it comes!

As for the .edu, I meant a .edu text link. One of those babies and you'll get your forum re-indexed. Might take a week, but well worth it. You could try www.text-link-ads.com or www.textlinkbrokers.com to purchase a link.

 

thanks voasi..you've been immensely helpful.

 

Is that how Universities are making their money now?

 

the hack worked well. It was so easy to install. I hope it helps.

I'll go take a look at some .edu sites as you have suggested.

Thanks again.