My site doesn't appear in Google searches

**Xhris** · 10 March 2009, 05:37 PM

If I do a Google search for things like "xhris tutorials" or "tutorial trove", or other permutations of Xhris, Xara, tutorials, trove etc. My site never appears. I've even submitted it to Google. What could I do to get it to appear?

**visual-net** · 10 March 2009, 06:19 PM

Hi Chris,

what site do you talking about? This one:

http://xhris.digitalred.net/

Normally it takes between 8 days till 3 month when your page is listed in Google after submitting it there

I can tell you step by step what you have to do to get a Top 10 Ranking in Google - normally you shouldn't have any problems with your site...but:

For instance your first site is called "Home Page" if you like to see it under "xhris tutorials" you should call it "xhris tutorials welcomes you on this website" or something like that - The Page Title is one of much things wich brings you a Top 10 ranking in Google...
Change this and then test your google ranking in view days again. There are of course much other tings that you can do and it always depends on your competitors...

Michael

**Xhris** · 10 March 2009, 06:35 PM

Ok thanks for that. But why is it that some threads on TG appear (presumably without being explicitly submitted to Google) in Google searches a few hours after being created? Why isn't my site appearing like this?

**haakoo** · 10 March 2009, 06:40 PM

http://talkgraphics.com/showpost.php...4&postcount=14

Hans

**steve.ledger** · 10 March 2009, 06:41 PM

The more often a site is updated/changes the more often the googlebot will visit and re index.

**haakoo** · 10 March 2009, 06:47 PM

You're on page 12,
seems the nickname xhris is a very much used one,or you are on all these boards and myspace alike sites

Hans

**steve.ledger** · 01 June 2009, 11:15 AM

Hi Xhris,
I see you have recently updated your site, but there's still nothing in your head.

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=7"/>
<meta name="XAR jpegs" content="1"/>
<meta name="XAR pngs" content="54"/>
<title>Home Page</title>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=Windows-1252"/>
<meta name="Generator" content="Xara HTML filter v.2.2.0.673"/>
<script type="text/javascript" src="index_htm_files/roe.js"></script>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="index_htm_files/default.css" />
</head>

I suggest you add a meaningful title, some keywords and description at least, no?

**slavelle** · 01 June 2009, 12:23 PM

Xhris,

Put this in google:

site:http://xhris.digitalred.net/

This shows what Google sees in its index for that site. You have a lot of pages and therefore a lot in the index. So they key is, as mentioned above, getting as much in the important places as you can to get some specific things going.

Also, it doesn't hurt to have links in to your site from other legitimate places (not link trades) such as from Xara itself (like in your posted tutorial in this month's edition of the Outsider, right?). If google sees that other sites are interested in you, then it is more interested in you as well.

There are a million ways to optimize, like with the page names, descriptions, meta tags, etc. You have a lot of text content, which can be good for getting lots of keyword combos, so you likely just need some optimization.

Also note that there are "wrong" ways to get yourself listed, and you shouldn't buy into someone saying they guarantee first page google rankings (unless of course you quote entire sentences from the site or something). Google will actually take you out of the index if they see certain behaviors obviously tailored to getting high ranks.

Google wants you to be as organic as possible. Their own "webmaster tools" advice says to write the page for your audience, use decent markup, include site maps to make sure that google sees all the pages you want it to see, and not those you don't (robots.txt instructions).

For what it's worth:

Google: xara tutorial trove (no quotes)
You are listed as number one. I would never search for the word "trove", however, unless I knew it was called that, and in that case I'd likely know you to get there some other way (like through your sig on talkgraphics).

Interestingly, other combos that I would expect to work don't pull you up in the first several pages, such as (I never actually use quotes): "xara bump map tutorial" or "xara transparency tutorial". In fact, "Bump Map Tutorial" is the title of that page, so it should really rank high if not first. Maybe you just changed this... if not, it could be that there isn't any content on the page, so the title is irrelevent at that point.

I was actually just reading through part of the website creation tutorial and I think I see what part of the issue is. If you didn't know what the text was about, it looks very generic; mostly words that could be used in the context of almost any application in nearly any genre. The keyword richness quotient (I think I'll copyright/servicemark/etc that term) is probably really low - a lot of text, but not a lot of relevent keywords. This isn't to say you have bad writing, but not the best for the search engine to understand.

Of course, this is all conjecture assuming that any of us have any idea of what Google is really looking for, but I hope this at least adds something.

**Xhris** · 01 June 2009, 06:52 PM

Thanks for the feedback! So what would you recommend I do specifically and how? I did add a page title to each page in the web properties dialogue (the website creation tutorial had to have two pages as Xara's page size limit is something like 15000 pixels and this was almost twice as long). There's no obvious way to add header content in WD, although I recall something about using named objects to achieve it but have never tried that yet. What is the purpose of head text anyway?

What other specific things could I do to get the site's visibility up?

Thanks

Xhris

**steve.ledger** · 01 June 2009, 09:36 PM

Originally Posted by Xhris

Thanks for the feedback! So what would you recommend I do specifically and how? I did add a page title to each page in the web properties dialogue

'Home Page' is hardly a useful Title for Google or surfers looking for free tutorials for Xara Xtreme.

Use the Meta section in XWD to add a meaningful title, a few good keywords and a simple description.
I try to think about what people will type when they are searching for a site with information they are seeking.
They likely don't know anything specific about you or your site, they aren't looking for you - they want information only so will enter something like "free xara tutorials" as their search criteria. So capture that sort of thing.

Click image for larger version.

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There's no obvious way to add header content in WD, although I recall something about using named objects to achieve it but have never tried that yet.

Name the placeholder object which is to appear in the head area <head>
For example. Create a small rectangle, give the name <head> and in the 'Replaced with HTML' enter:
<meta name="author" content="Xara Xhris" />

The placeholder object does not even need to be on the page, you can locate it off the page in the grey paste-board area.
XWD will add this to the <head> </head> section of the page on export.

What is the purpose of the head text anyway?

See here