[sdiy][OT] why does google suck SO bad for finding my parts? Yahoo is on it!

[Florian Anwander]

Hi Bob

Ok, this is a little bit offtopic, but might be interesting
> Wondered if anyone has any clue why Yahoo easily picks up things 
> like..for instance "Replacement Key" Korg MS*
> 
> I'm first hit.
> 
> With google...I'm not even listed.  At all.  4 pages of irrelevant 
> links.  What is wrong with them?  

We had a consulting regarding the searchability of our web page here in 
our company and some of the results might be of interest also for us the 
private persons:

There are several differences between Google and Yahoo. The most 
relevant in regards of your page is: Yahoo ranks a link very high, if it 
was found in a public yahoo-group. And I assume, that the link to your 
page has been posted in a lot of special synth related groups.

Yahoo rates ebay and all those "bestby"-sites with an malus, so they 
cannot spoil the results.

These two aspects are not under your control (in regards to your google 
hits).


Aspects which are relevant for Google ratings and which are under you 
influence are:

1.) how often the searched keyword appears in the text. In your case: 
The phrase "replacement keys" does appear only on time at the bottom in 
the sentence "Below are new and used replacement keys that I have in 
stock"!!!

2.) The search string should appear in relationship to phrases of 
similar relevance, e.g.: "Keyboard" "Synthesizer" "Vocoder" - I call 
this an "phrase environment". Google checks for all keywords and 
compares, whether phrases, which are not searched but which are found 
quite often for this topic, do appear also in your page.  This is, why a 
lot of ebay-hits appear at google, because these provide the typical 
"phrase environment"

3.) The page name does not represent the search string

4.) The <title>-tag should contain the main topics - your page is 
missing the <title>-tag at all (it is very interesting to whatch the 
title tags at ebay pages. Example: The title of the search result list 
for effects gear in ebay germany is "<title>eBay: 15 Inch, Omega 3, Used 
Compressor, World</title>")

5.) (not so relevant for your sparepart keys page) If you have a picture 
on your page, you should use the "alternate text"-tag and there should 
be a readable text which is related to your topic quite close to the picture


Hope, this helps.

Florian