My main competition is freeipodtouch.blogspot.com/ (my site is www.free-ipod-touch.com). We are both trying to rank well for "free ipod touch" (obviously). My question is why is he on page 1 while I am on page 3? I have way higher PR backlinks and some very relevant backlinks too. I've been working hard on white hat on-page and off-page SEO. What am I doing wrong? Help!
1. Content. - His content is more than yours and more instructional 2. Domain - Google seems to favor keywords in the domain (no hyphens) 3. Age of Domain - Blogspot is older.
I think the hyphens in the URL might be causing a problem, but obviously you cant do any thing about it. Try reducing the characters in the title tag. You have a very long title there. Only use the very important keywords in it, for example shorten the 'You can really get an iPod...' to 'Get an iPod...'
I thought hyphen-separated keywords in domain names were good. Hm. I wanted to keep the main page uncluttered. Maybe I'll make a subpage with more info. Thanks guys.
I think your site has a high keyword density. freeipodtouch.blogspot.com - 3.38 freeipodtouch.blogspot.com/ - 7.95
I'd say you may be getting penalized for keyword spamming. You have "free ipod touch" four times in the meta description alone. I'd try replacing some instances in description and on-page with similar phrases. As far as hyphens go, you're correct. The hyphens make the keywords readable for search engines and you don't get penalized for it.
OK, I have a bunch of backlinks, some highly relevant, others with high PR and I'm still not doing well in the SERPS (while he is #2). Argh. I think I'm sandboxed or something.
all what i have to say is pay someone there are many in this forum who will post on blogs article and awith your keyword tagged that wuill help you much faster to get listed in the first page
I don't think it's that, I have plenty of backlinks. I must be sandboxed or something, I don't appear even the first 20 pages or so for my keywords, except for blog articles which aren't even targeted at my keywords specifically.
dance of joy, dance of joy, dance of joy - I'm the first google result for free ipod touch! Huzzah Now to just STAY there....*sigh*
Some techniques take time, results do not change on a whim or every time you do something. Good job on top placement.