Search Engine Optimization w/ Miva

[diecastfast]

Re: Search Engine Optimization w/ Miva

Excellent information here. As a self-taught SEO individual, I agree that "content is king" and quality inbound links are basically the beginning and end of the matter.

Do a search for "diecast cars" and I'm #1 and have been for years. I never spent a penny on any advertising after I reached #1 - and that's after spending $250/day on AdWords during the holiday '04 season. The reason I'm #1 is I either bought or developed "satellite" websites that also ranked high for that term and started sending tens of thousands of high-quality links inbound. For instance, I own the Google authority site for "diecast blog" as well as about a dozen other sites. That takes time and there is no fooling Google. Start now and expect results in several months. Link trades are valueless (unless you get slick and use the rel="nofollow" tag) and links from unrelated sites are basically valueless. Someone said to never pay for links. I disagree. I pay $400 for some links per year on high-ranking, quality, related sites. My advice? If you're at ground zero, buy some links and develop a quality site (a blog is perfect) and Google will get interested. Oh, did I mention quality? I wouldn't take free links from unrelated directories.

All the SEO modules are good but, as mentioned by the author of the thread, Google will spider every URL on your site right out of the box and won't penalize you for & signs. I was #1 on Google for my money-making term on MM4.12 with no SEO mods at all because of all my inbound links. I don't spend any time at all on tags and such other than title tags.

[Siamese-Dream.Com]

Re: Search Engine Optimization w/ Miva

Thank you Diecastfast for your help. I have one question / concern though:

The reason I'm #1 is I either bought or developed "satellite" websites that also ranked high for that term and started sending tens of thousands of high-quality links inbound. For instance, I own the Google authority site for "diecast blog" as well as about a dozen other sites.

Wouldn't that be considered a "link farm?" That is something that google is supposed to frown heavily (i.e., penalize) web masters for doing.

In fact, google has been involved in domain registration, and it is believed the reason they are doing that is so that they will be better able to tell when a web site that links to another site is owned by the same person, and thus qualifies as a link farm...

Mark

[diecastfast]

Re: Search Engine Optimization w/ Miva

Thank you Diecastfast for your help. I have one question / concern though:



Wouldn't that be considered a "link farm?" That is something that google is supposed to frown heavily (i.e., penalize) web masters for doing.

In fact, google has been involved in domain registration, and it is believed the reason they are doing that is so that they will be better able to tell when a web site that links to another site is owned by the same person, and thus qualifies as a link farm...

Mark

No, it's a site with related, high quality content, not a link farm.

[Siamese-Dream.Com]

Re: Search Engine Optimization w/ Miva

Hi again, Diecastfast:

BTW: Your site looks great! Now I totally feel like I have to redesign our site. Arrrggghh...

mark

[diecastfast]

Re: Search Engine Optimization w/ Miva

Hi again, Diecastfast:

BTW: Your site looks great! Now I totally feel like I have to redesign our site. Arrrggghh...

mark

Thanks, Mark! The guys at Miva did it for me - they do great work. Just don't let them tell you it's only going to take 6 weeks. ;-)

[jlhwebgal]

Re: Search Engine Optimization w/ Miva

I have read this entire discussion and wow am I grateful for this conversation and all of the information posted.

I do have a couple of questions about the items you mentioned (quoted below).

1. Adding ALT tags to Images and Links: Is there a way to use miva code to pull the product name or meta title into this dynamically?

2. Does the category tree template from Sebenza qualify as search engine friendly sub-categories? If not can you go into more detail as to how to achieve that?

Thank you!

Adding of ALT tags images
(part 1 of miva's package)
This is an seo must, however, you can easily accomplish this on your own by planting the product name token into the alt tag of the product images. So in this case, this will benefit you, but do not assume in any way that this is going to get you traffic because it won't.



Well Structured Navigation
Your websites navigation is equally as important. Miva's category tree is only seo friendly if you don't have sub-categories within each main category. If you have sub-categories, they are hidden from the search engine when the bot or spider hits your home page.

[Pamela Hazelton]

Re: Search Engine Optimization w/ Miva

I have read this entire discussion and wow am I grateful for this conversation and all of the information posted.

I do have a couple of questions about the items you mentioned (quoted below).

1. Adding ALT tags to Images and Links: Is there a way to use miva code to pull the product name or meta title into this dynamically?

2. Does the category tree template from Sebenza qualify as search engine friendly sub-categories? If not can you go into more detail as to how to achieve that?

Thank you!

1. Yes. Look at the PROD Page template and you'll see where the name is displayed. Copy + Paste that right into the appropriate ALT tag.

2. A category tree is not a sub-category. Sub-categories are just categories, really, assigned parents.

[kitdang]

Re: Search Engine Optimization w/ Miva

aarcmedia and all SEO experts,

After 4 extensive months of building our new site, It is finally time to get a second opinion on our work. Please feel free to badger the site with your honest opinion (don't hold back please :-)). It's a very low budget project but we were able to incorporate lots of wonderful modules.

Also, we are doing our domain switch over this weekend. Since the old site was built with classic ASP pages, the structure and pages will not exist. Should I do a 301 for the whole site? I am assuming this is done on the htaccess file. If so, can someone provide a simple code for this?

Thanks in advance

P.S. lots of kudos to aarcmedia for the opportunity to have this post.

Just a quick history

[kitdang]

Re: Search Engine Optimization w/ Miva

oops, forgot to provide the url....

http://208.84.114.15

[aarcmedia]

Re: Search Engine Optimization w/ Miva

Horizontal nav bar links are wrapping into a second line in Firefox. That's the first thing I noticed.

[kitdang]

Re: Search Engine Optimization w/ Miva

I am in firefox and I dont see it. Can you please provide the page? It shouldn't matter since all are in css but I am intersted to find out what you are referencing. Thanks

[Siamese-Dream.Com]

Re: Search Engine Optimization w/ Miva

I am getting a wrapping of the horizontal navigation bar too in Firefox. I wnet to this page:

http://208.84.114.15/halloween-costu...-costumes.html

and the Clearance button wrapped down to the left below the other buttons.

In fact, the other buttons shifted to the right a bit. So instead of the Toddler Costumes button being flush left, it is actually about an inch (on my monitor at my resolution) away from the left hand edge.

Unfortunately, it isn't consistent; I navigated away from that page, and then navigated back, and the problem was gone, so I don't know what to tell you...

If I keep clicking the reload button, the formatting will be right about three or four times, then the next time I hit reload, it will be wrapped.

Otherwise, I do like the design a lot. Nice and clean.

mark

[kitdang]

Re: Search Engine Optimization w/ Miva

Mark,

Can you elaborate how you get to the link you provide in your post? When i click on it, it redirect me to a page can not found on my site. Doesnt make sense.

I don't recall having a link with that url.

Thanks and I appreciate your feedback though.

PS - I still can not pinpoint the wrapping on the nav bar. humm.......

[Siamese-Dream.Com]

Re: Search Engine Optimization w/ Miva

Can you elaborate how you get to the link you provide in your post? When i click on it, it redirect me to a page can not found on my site. Doesnt make sense.

Arrgghh... Miva has set this forum to filter adult content, so your url that I posted has been changed by this forum. This forum inserted * instead of a certain word that starts with an S and ends with a Y and has the letters EX in the middle.

So you will have to click that link and change out the * s and insert the appropriate letters.

Please don't ask me why I picked that particular page to look at ;)

Dr. Mark

[kitdang]

Re: Search Engine Optimization w/ Miva

Okay, I see it now. I have spent the last two hours trying to fix this but failed. It works perfect in IE and it works half of the time in Firefox. It depends on the refresh like you said.

I think it's in the CSS with div and span padding/width but I have no clue on how to make it work all the time in firefox.

:-(