Google page rank

[hoinvip]

Can anyone see an obvious reason why this website might have a google Page Rank of 0/10?

http://www.global-net.co.uk

We've done a lot of work on this site and would like to improve the rankings without paying a colossal amount of money if it can be avoided.

Any suggestions?

 

[Wullie]

1) 226 keywords.
2) What exactly are VAR metas?
3) Lack of content.
4) Lack of relative content.
5) Hidden text.

Need I continue?

Wullie

http://www.necomputers.org.uk

http://www.freshlookdesign.co.uk

http://www.freshlookdesign.com

http://www.whiland.co.uk

The pessimist complains about the wind. The optimist expects it to change.
The leader adjusts the sails. - John Maxwell

 

[mThomas]

Your page rank is actually 1/10.

mike

 

[hoinvip]

Wullie, Thanks for the feedback. The var tabs were originally included by the guy that created the initial site. Since then I have taken on managing this site and they've simply been overlooked.

What does worry me is your comments about the lack of content... can you recommend any improvements at all?

 

[ulteriormotif]

As said, I see a PR1 from here.

When dealing with PageRank, you have to ask two questions:

The first question is always 'what should this page's pagerank be?'.

Your page aquires PR by gaining links from other pages - a portion of the PR of those pages is passed on to your page.

Google shows no links for your page. This isn't necessarily true, as link:

http://www.domain.com

on Google will only show pages of PR4 or greater.... ie, you coiuld have 100 PR3 links and still show nil.

A link search on ATW however shows five links: two from PR0s, 1 from a PR1 and two from unranked (no page rank) pages.

Given that it appears you only have one link from a PR1 page, it's perfectly reasonable that you would have a PR1. Solution: Go get more links.

The second question, which is probably irrelevant in this case, is asked if the PR of the page you are looking at isn't what you might expect from asking the first question. If the answer is "NO", then you need to consider whether you have a penalty or not.

I think penalty issues is the angle Wullie is coming from, however I disagree with most of the possibilities raised.

1) 226 keywords. - Google doesn't care about the keywords meta tag.. because of this type of 'abuse' it has largely been ignored for a long time. The question you might ask is whether it is a help or a hindrance on other engines.
2) What exactly are VAR metas? - Not familiar with them myself, but a waste of space. SEO wise, the only metas to worry about are the description and keywords. Either way, as long as they are correctly formatted, they won't cause a G penalty.. G just doesn't care about them.
3) Lack of content. Not a penalty issue. Flash and graphic design pages are a perfectly valid way of representing content on the net. Not a very bright way in terms of search engine marketing because the SE's can't read them and therefore have no content to relate to queries from searchers, but not a penalty issue.
4) Lack of relative content. ? Not quite sure what Wullie means by relative in this context, but again, not a penalty issue.
5) Hidden text. Bingo. Potential penalty stuff. A clear and deliberate attempt to provide info to the search engine that is not being provided to the user.


The final answer here is that I don't believe you have a penalty. IF PR is a concern for you, then you need to go get some more quality links, but keep it in perspective. PR is only ONE factor of around 100 in Google's algorythm, and while a relatively heavily weighted on, it is not the be-all and end-all. It is also irrelevant to every other search engine out there (qualifier: bear in mind that Google results are served on some other engines).

 

[foxdev]

Ditto on what has already been said. And, you actually have a lot more pages than is obvious by looking at your index.

One point: change your link text. For example, you have:

For more detail on the Cisco Systems range of products, please click here

Change it so that they key phrases are in the link, as in:

Get more detail on the Cisco Systems networking products

--------------

http://www.art-factory-outlet.com

 

[hoinvip]

Thanks very much for all the advice everyone. I will set about implementing as many of these changes as I can. Interesting that Google PR is only a small element of the algorithm... Can anyone suggest other means of improving placements? We already run a limited PPC campaign so would I be correct in thinking that optimisation of the site is the next best step to take?

 

[ChrisHirst]

possibly wullie was thinking relevant textual content which would certainly assist the search engine spiders.
More importantly do not try to do anything purely for PR sake or the SEs, whatever you do ask yourself 'does it help the site visitors' and you will be doing your site more good.

As everyone has said get rid of the hidden text, also build yourself a site map using key phrase text links and put a link to the site map on all your pages. What you need more than anything is some QUALITY inbound links, you show none (to check backlinks use link:

http://www.global-net.co.uk/

in the google search box) get listed in some of the directories (DMOZ etc) but avoid the 'Freeforall' listings.

Also Google is in a state of flux as they are still testing new algorithms (www2 & www3 often show different SERPs to

http://www).

Chris.


Indifference will be the downfall of mankind, but who cares?

 

[hoinvip]

O.k. I've binned the VAR tags on the homepage and the hidden text.

I'll also look at putting a sitemap together in the near future.

I will pursue a linking programme as well as I know this is an area where we are weak. We do have some links but for reasons I cannot fathom, google doesn't list them...?

Thanks again for everyone's input on this. It's much appreciated.