Ok, for the past 6 weeks or so I've been pretty upset that www.brainmania.com was neck and neck with our site www.brainmass.com for 'homework help', since thats a placeholder page that doesn't contain the word 'homework' or 'help' anywhere in the code. I believe it used to be a homework help site since it has about 40 or so inbound links around this theme, but since I've been checking it for the past 6 weeks it has had no content. When checking the numbers this passed weekend I almost lost it when I saw it jump 20 spots ahead of us to mid 60's and we stayed back in mid 80's. I don't get it, our site is huge content wise, the homepage is well optimized for our term or at least I like to think so, yet we are going nowhere and brainmania is improving. We need to get to top 30-20 under 'homework help' but we are stuck in the 80's, yet we are ranked 2nd for 'homework help service'. Please, for the love of god tell me what is going on here. I'm starting to hate google with a passion.
It's probably their backlinks that are doing the trick. Perhaps an email to each of that site's backlinks, explaining that they are linking to a non-existant site, and suggesting that they link to yours instead, could make all the difference.
Why don't you ask Mania's referrers to change the link to your site considering Mania's site is empty anyway. If they want quality links for quality content and service on their sites, they're better off linking to you. I'd give it a shot, you never know!
Also check the anchor text of the links they have incoming. If you want to rank for "homework help" make it your life's mission to get every link to your site to contain the words "homework help". Also, if your competitor is indeed no longer offering "homework help" content, you might let DMOZ know and suggest they remove them from whichever category it is that you likely share with them. That will start the long and slow unwinding of them being listed in all the mirror directories using DMOZ - and that will certainly help TimS
How new is the site? Could it be in the sandbox period? It happened to a site I help to run. All the time I just kept getting more backlinks and now, a couple of months later, the results are getting better.
Brainmass, All I can tell you is that it proves once again that on-page content is not what gets you placed in the SERPs. There are all kinds of examples of sites ranking high in the SERPs for words that don't appear anywhere on the page. The answer of course is what everyone else has told you indirectly. Backlink with the appropriate anchor text is what get you placed high in the SERps. So go get some more links. It may take a little while for them to work -- the sandbox effect -- but in the end this is what you must do. On page content is for your visitors or users. Links are for Google.
I agree, however, why is it that when SEOing a page you are supposed to also use <h1> <title> etc etc. Googlebombing has been used many times in the past and reached it's desired effect (through links). Why is it then that the page structure has always been so important? Is it just an *extra* treat then?
Well that is exactly the point I don't think it is "so important". The exception possibly being for very unusual or niche sites and keywords. In this case you don't need links in particular because there is no competition. But on-page content is never going to hurt you. It is user friendly and necessary if you want to hold your visitors once they arrive on the page. And if you have two pages with the identical number and quality of backlinks then the page with the better on-page content, including title, will be placed higher. In my mind you need both. But you shouldn't be asking questions like "what is going on here" if all you are relying upon is content. Content by itself is not enough.
On-Page SEO should be the first and last thing on your mind. First, you should build content that users will want to see. Last, you should build content that users are glad they have seen and would like to see again. In between first and last, there are thousands of hours that should be devoted to Off-Page SEO. You cannot suceed with either strategy alone.
No one suggested you could. But this thread is not about success in general but specifically about success getting placed high in Googles SERPs. To get placed high in Googles SERPs links are generally more important than content.
Weird brainmania just fell back down to earth and is few spots behind us now. Google must be doing something.
The answer isn't the PR of your site being the same as brainmania or that you have quite a few inbound links (which is a good thing ) The key is the anchor text of those links. For instance, I checked a few of your backlinks - the anchor text ranged from "Brainmass" to "Homework and Essay Help" to "You can get help 24/7 at Brainmass" to "Online Academic Assistance". This, for lack of a better word, "confuses" Google. They're not sure what it is exactly that you want people to expect those links to bring them to It will take some time, but the answer to your ranking is in contacting the higher PR sites that have linked to your site and asking them to change the anchor text of the link to something like "Homework Help - Essay Writing Help" (I added the "essay writing" part as I noticed it seems important in some of your descriptions.) And get in DMOZ - so many directories feed from DMOZ that it's insane these days to not be listed - and make sure you use the right anchor text with DMOZ, too TimS
Ya I'm contacting all the linking sites to change the text to 'Homework Help' from whatever they use, I'm guessing it wont be anytime soon when I'll actually see any decent resutls in google. DMOZ, I remember submitting to it a month or so ago but forgot which section I used so I can't check the status of the insertion process. Damn, brainmania is back in low 60's arrrrrrrrrrrr!
That's the beauty of Google - they will reward you with better ranking as soon as they pick up the new anchor text I've found it to be amazingly quick in most instances. Google wants to help - Google wants to put your page in front of the exact people that are looking for your page - it's what makes them #1 Consider Google as an average web surfer - they are scanning page after page looking for some "homework help" - they will consider a website linked as "Homework Help" a lot more relevant to their quest than one linked as anything else TimS
'homework help' brainmass.com: Search - 84 allintext - 54 allinanchor - 59 brainmania.com: Search - 66 allintext - not listed (no content) allinanchor - 111 Arrrrrrrrr!
You need good links with surrounding text like this: Homework help to get the best help on your homework. The world's premier homework help service. -- ok a bit spammy but you get the idea ---