Q and A: What can I do to improve the rank of my regional domain on Google.com?

Dear Kalena...

My question is on regional google sites. I have a .com.au and rank well on google.com.au when selecting 'search web' and 'search australian sites' but my rank on google.com is very bad. I would have assumed that the results for google.com and google.com.au 'search the web' would have been the same? What can I do to improve my google.com rank, perhaps I could register a .com and point it to my .com.au? Any ideas would be greatly appreciated, thanks for offering this service by the way :)

Tim

Kalena's Answer:

Dear Tim

First up, never assume anything with Google. Secondly, search engines use a few different methods to determine a site's country of origin. Here are just two:

1) IP address the site resides on (physical location of host servers)
2) Domain extension

The physical location of the server that stores your site can have an impact on how search engines treat your site. Even if your site is hosted by an Australian firm, if they use server space located in another country, that is usually the country search engines will associate with your site. Check with your host about server location if this is an issue for you.

Now about your specific example - think about who uses Google.com.au - the primary users are from Australia, correct? So why would Google show the same results to Australian users that they would show to users of Google.com? They (correctly) assume that Australians want to see results that are relevant to them. So Google naturally gives preference to sites with a .com.au domain extension or sites that are hosted in Australia for both regional searches and "search the web" searches on Google.com.au.

Not only that, but Google uses IP detection to determine a searcher's geographical location and present results they determine relevant for persons in that location. How else do you think they decide what AdWords ads to show to different searchers? Advertisers request their ads to be shown to specific regions, countries or towns, so Google have a highly sophisticated algorithm to make sure this happens automatically.

If it is really vital that your site be shown more prominently on Google.com, I would suggest moving your site to a .com domain, on a server located in the US. You could then 301 redirect your .com.au domain to the .com. Pointing a .com to a .com.au won't do anything because you are still instructing bots that the .com.au site is your primary domain. I would really only consider switching domains if your major market is the US, the Australian market is relatively unimportant to you and you are happy to lose visibility in Google.com.au, which is what would inevitably happen.

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Business.com Sells to R.H. Donnelley

This one caught my eye as I had recently blogged about an Interview with Jessica Bowman of Business.com and renewed my listings with them.

Turns out that Business.com is being acquired lock, stock and two smoking barrels by Yellow Pages marketing company R.H. Donnelley. I wonder how/if this will impact Business.com advertisers like me?


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Q and A: Do you know of any recent court rulings regarding conceptual searches?

Dear Kalena...

Do you happen to know of any recent court rulings regarding conceptual searches?

Thanks,
David

Kalena's Answer:

Dear David

I know of this one and this one over click fraud, but not any specifically relating to conceptual search, unless you count those lodged over trademark issues. Here is a list of the most recent search-related law suits I could find over at Search Engine Land. You'll probably find what you're looking for there.

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Q and A: Is the Meta Description Tag important anymore?

Dear Kalena...

My friend and I are having a debate about the value of the meta description tag. He says that search engines don't index them anymore and so you don't need to use one. I think that he's wrong and that search engines will use them in the search results pages to describe your site, but if you don't include one, you might find a snippet of text from your page being used instead.

Who's right?

Anther

Kalena's Answer:

Dear Anther

Great question! The answer depends on each search engine. For example, Google and Yahoo will sometimes use part of your META Description tag, but they will usually use a snippet of text on your web page that includes the exact search query entered. But if your site is listed in the Yahoo Directory, Yahoo will often use your editor-created description from there. If your site is listed in the ODP, Google may use your ODP description.

As Ammon Johns says in this post at cre8asite forums, the most valuable use of the META Description tag is to write it in a way that is going to convince relevant visitors to click on your link if it is shown in the SERPs. Always write a unique META Description for each page on your site and make sure it accurately describes your page and the content users are going to find on it so you only attract clicks from qualified visitors looking for exactly the information you are offering.


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Q and A: Should I buy an established web site?

Dear Kalena...

I know you are very busy, but I hope you can help me. I am considering buying a web site. The price is $1750 and the domain is [URL removed]. This website sells over 400 different dog and cat pet products. The web site already has all of the supplier's available products loaded with description and pictures.

It’s only through one supplier – I could certainly find out who that is before I bought it. It’s not a business yet, just a website. They sure found a great domain name! Do you believe it was available? Do you think you could give me a quick opinion on this? I’d really appreciate it. Thank you!

Best,
Lois

Kalena's Answer:

Hi Lois

I'm not in a position to advise you on this purchase, as I've never personally purchased a completed web site before, only ever bought new domain names and built up my own businesses. May I suggest you do a few things immediately:

1) Look up the company selling the site on their local Better Business Bureau to ensure they are legitimate.

2) Do a Google search on the company selling the site to see what others are saying about them.

3) Ask to have referrals from other customers who have bought sites from them.

4) Look up the domain you are purchasing on Allwhois.com to ensure the domain registration details match the company claiming to own the domain.

5) Get in contact with the suppliers of the products that the site is selling to make sure this is a legitimate business.

6) Ask for some advice about purchasing established websites on various webmaster forums such as cre8asite forums and high rankings forums. You are likely to find other webmasters on such forums who have done this before and will give you good advice.

Also, I've had a look at the site for sale and there is reason to be concerned about it's search engine compatibility. First up, the site pages are all dynamic in nature, meaning search engines might have trouble indexing them. The home page redirects to a long-winded PHP page with multiple parameters which looks like an affiliate link. The site has no Google PageRank and is not being cached by Google. This would trigger alarm bells with me.

I'd do a LOT of research before throwing yourself into this. The domain name is nothing special. You could have a very nice web site built by professionals using a search engine friendly CMS for less than $1,750.

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Q and A: Why doesn't my new Flash site rank as well as my old non-Flash site?

Dear Kalena...

Hi there - thanks for your fabulous newsletter and advice. I am doing some research on my friend's site, www.nolastudio.com.au (a Flash site). It used to be mosaicmadness.com.au (html site) which now redirects to nolastudio. Since the change, her rankings have dropped. Is this because the new site is Flash? If so, is there a way to optimise a Flash site so it can rank highly again? Any advice will be appreciated :-)

Vlasia

Kalena's Answer:

Dear Vlasia

I've looked at both sites and there are quite a few problems:

1) The old domain has not been redirected to the new one. Both domains are still being indexed by Google. View the Google cache of each domain and you'll see what I mean.

2) It appears both domains are hosted on different IP addresses and Google is treating them as separate sites with different PageRank scores and cache history. This could cause duplicate content problems and your friend should arrange to move both domains to the same IP address as soon as possible.

3) What your friend should have done is to implement 301 redirects from her old page URLs on mosaicmadness.com.au to the replacement pages on nolastudio.com.au. If she still knows the old page URLs she should implement the redirects quickly, before they drop out of the search engine index as non-existent. You can find plenty of posts by me on this blog about how to implement 301 redirects effectively. Click on the 301 redirects label below right for starters.

4) Sites built with Flash are generally not search engine friendly because they consist mainly of graphics and Shockwave files that search engine robots can't "read". If your friend's old site consisted of flat text-based HTML pages, it's no wonder the replacement Flash site is not ranking as well. I called up her page over 10 mins ago and I'm still seeing the [loading...] message! I suggest she implement a non-Flash version of the site as soon as possible and provide a link to this non-Flash version on her new home page. This will ensure visitors who dislike Flash (i.e. most of them) won't grow old waiting to see her content and search engines will be able to index it.

5) As an attempt to optimize a Flash site, somebody has decided it might be a good idea to stuff keywords galore between no embed tags on your friend's home page. They're wrong. Have your friend remove that retro spam from her home page immediately or risk Google engineers wetting themselves from laughter as they pass the site URL amongst themselves one rainy Friday afternoon. It's probably already tripped suppression filters.

6) As a short term fix to ensure your friend doesn't lose any traffic that is still trying to find pages on her old site, she should implement a Custom 404 error page on her domain that explains that she has moved domains and provides the new URL for visitors. Otherwise any persons clicking on outdated page links in the search engines will arrive at a plain 404 error page and likely click away never to return.

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The 3 most beautiful words in the English language

Thanks for your patience and emails of support while this blog has been neglected. Quite a few of you have asked me what has been going on with me and what my recent surgery was for. I thought it was about time I gave you the full story. Here goes!

About a month ago, I received some terrifying news from a specialist physician who I had gone to see regarding bouts of severe abdominal pain. During my examination, he found a large cyst on one of my ovaries and suspected possible ovarian cancer. He wanted me to have blood tests the same day.

In a state of shock, I drove myself to the pathology lab, where I found my sister waiting for me, also pale and worried. We comforted each other and tried to convince one another that the cause was something else. When I didn't hear back from the specialist immediately, I put things out of my mind, comforted by the words of his receptionist who said when I called to follow up after a week that "If the results had been bad, he would have called you by now".

The next day, the specialist called me. My blood had come back with high markers for ovarian cancer and he wanted to hand over my case to a surgeon he knew at the Sydney Cancer Center, 6 hours drive away. The surgeon would call me to arrange emergency surgery, he said. I was completely devastated and my husband Jerry and I spent the next 2 days in a stupor, convinced I only had months to live. During those hellish days, the same thought kept going through my head - "I'm only 39 years of age and I'll never get to see my 3 year old son grow up".

The surgeon (Dr Selvan Pather) called me 2 days later and asked me to make the trip to Sydney the following week for pre-op tests and examination. During that call he reassured me that high markers for ovarian cancer did not necessarily mean I had ovarian cancer. I felt all the air rush out of me and clutched like mad to a tiny glimmer of hope. Could it be possible my specialist had gotten it wrong? I must've sobbed with joy in Jerry's arms for about an hour after that call. I'll never be able to thank my surgeon enough for the reassurance he gave us that day.

So on Monday 2nd July, we packed up the car and headed down to Sydney to stay at my sister's while awaiting my surgery on 6 July. During examination, my surgeon was even more reassuring and said that they saw a lot of cases like mine that turn out to be something much less sinister than cancer, like endometriosis. Just the week before, a woman with blood markers for ovarian cancer ten times as high as mine turned out to have endometriosis and no cancer. According to his surgical assistant, the extreme pain I was in during the examination was also a strong indicator that endometriosis could be the cause. But they wouldn't know for sure until surgery and a frozen biopsy was taken on the cyst to test for cancer cells. Regardless, I would likely need a full hysterectomy and if cancer was detected, a radical hysterectomy followed by chemotherapy and radiation.

The day of the operation dawned: Friday 6 July 2007. I was petrified but felt confident I was in good hands with my caring surgeons. Jerry would learn of the results of my biopsy and surgery before I would and I told him that while I was in recovery, I wanted him to give me the thumbs up sign if cancer was not detected and the thumbs down if it was. Next thing I knew I was in agonizing pain in my abdomen and groaning. I was in recovery. I could vaguely see Jerry holding up his hands in the background and then I saw my surgeon smiling over me while I faded in and out of consciousness. He said: "Kalena, everything went well - you had nasty endometriosis which took a long time to remove and we've given you a hysterectomy, but the tests showed that the tumor was benign. We've left one of your ovaries intact so you won't be thrown into early menopause". When my eyes finally focused, I could see Jerry grinning from ear to ear holding up both thumbs.

So now it's been just over 2 weeks since surgery. My recovery has gone well, (apart from a nasty chest infection that I picked up in hospital) and my surgeon called today to let me know the final pathology tests from my operation all showed negative results for cancer. I am so grateful to Dr Pather and his assistant Marcello for giving me my life back and for their caring bedside manner. I am still quite angry with my local specialist for not fully explaining to me the consequences of my blood tests, but I am thankful that he put me in touch with Dr Pather and even more thankful that I am pain free and cancer free.

I am now keen to get on with the rest of my life. There'll be no more 14 hour work days for me - my little scare gave me an attitude adjustment that life is just too precious to work it away. I'll be spending more time with my family and more time relaxing and doing activities that I enjoy. I love blogging and I'm looking forward to getting stuck into more search engine questions, but don't expect to see me online as often as I used to be. Life's too short to be stuck in front of a laptop.

So that's my story, thanks for reading this far. I'll leave you with my new favorite quote from Woody Allen who, in the film Deconstructing Harry, said:

"The 3 most beautiful words in the English language are not 'I love you'. They are: 'it is benign' ".

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On the mend

Just a short note to say I am out of hospital and recovering from major surgery. All went well and I'll be back blogging full time next week.

Thanks to everyone for the emails and comments of concern, I really appreciate it!

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