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cajuns
Joined: Apr 10, 2006
# Posts: 104
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Posted: 11/06/2007 01:20 pm
Okay, I know it's been a long time since I posted. I have really been trying to optimize my pages, but the more I do, the worse it gets. I was a PR4 in Google, which is not great but(please check my profile for my website.)now I am a PR3. I thought with optimizing it would improve, but now it is even worse.
My website has been online about 7 years. I used to get pretty good results in google, but now, I am losing pages with them fast!
If anyone here has the time, could you please check it out, and tell me what I am doing wrong? Pages that were showing up in search results on Google, have now disappeared. It's been up and down for several months now. My site had pretty good results, then pretty much crashed for a while, then it came back for a while, now it's crashed pretty bad for the results. I have racked my brains, looked at my codes, and I really can not find the problems, which I am sure there must be many. I used Front Page for most of the pages, and I have read online that frontpage is not a good program to use.
I'm really frustrated, and I don't know where to go from here. After 7 years, you would think that it would get better than this.
I am truly trying to figure out what is wrong, and am so ready to give it all up.
Any help would be greatly appreciated, and not forgotten.
Thanks in advance!
Cajuns
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excell
Staff
Joined: Mar 19, 2001
# Posts: 14502
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Posted: 11/06/2007 11:29 pm
Hi there, lots of work in that website!
Do you think that after all this time you could make a big change with the way you are doing things?
The biggest thing I see is that there is not a neat category hierarchy - this makes it difficult for people to get around on the website and also makes it difficult for the search engines to follow and weigh different pages for strength etc.
A tree architecture for your website should be planned out with sections to contain pages in logical order.
For the folders you have, you should have index pages.
File naming of pages would be better done with hyphens rather than underscores.
I would step back, breath deeply and look at a good CMS to migrate the website into and set it up with clearly ordered navigation etc...
It is really useful content and I think that a focus on usability for visitors will help with search engines.
Future maintence of the website as well as consumer interaction could well save you mega time etc... if you migrate from Front Page to CMS 
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cajuns
Joined: Apr 10, 2006
# Posts: 104
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Posted: 11/07/2007 05:09 am
Hi Excell!
Oh yeah, lot's of work! :o) I really appreciate you taking the time to check it out.
Yep, I agree I need to make big changes, just didn't know what to do!
When you talk about my folders having index pages, I'm not quite sure what you mean. Do you mean that I should have a file named index.htm in each one, instead of naming the main file in the category as the recipe category? (Hope I am making sense.) For instance, in my recipe category folders, I name the main folder Cajun for Cajun recipes, then I name the file listing the recipes cajun.htm. Are you saying that instead of cajun.htm, it should be index.htm? If so, I really didn't realize I should be doing it that way! Thanks for pointing that out. I thought I was doing it right, and didn't realize that it was not user friendly, yikes!
As for the underscores, I didn't realize until after I named them and they were up a long time, that I shouldn't have named them that way!
I'm not too familiar with CMS programs. Could you suggest one?
One more question, if you don't mind.
Once I rename files and such, what would be the best way to do that without losing what I have left in search engines? Would I have to do a 404 or something like that to every one of them??
Like I said, the more I know, the more I realize what I don't know!
Thanks again so much for your time, and have a great day!
Cajuns
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excell
Staff
Joined: Mar 19, 2001
# Posts: 14502
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Posted: 11/07/2007 05:58 am
For a large website that has so many pages it will be difficult (but not impossible) to change the structure and rename pages in such a way to streamline transfer of existing search engine ranking for each page. (Ideally with a 301 redirect from old to new.)
What I would do (and it sounds really drastic!) I would just bite the bullet and set up a suitable framework and morph all - in a complete website redesign. I would implement a 404 to guide traffic to the new homepage (and get the SEs to phase the old pages out) and I would implement 301s only on important sections. The search engines will pick up the new pages via existing links etc.
I'm in love with Drupal at the moment for CMS. I haven't used one before (we use hand rolled editable pages for clients in the past)...so I am just beginning.
What I have found is that it is very very powerful, very flexible, functionality for just about anything you need is available and there is a huge community, heaps of help for creating a SE friendly website, everything you need for SEO...many beginner tutorials and step by step guides.
Anyway I am raving... LOL (for those that know me - I'll bet you are glad to hear I have finally decided to explore better ways of getting up hills rather than walking barefoot & backwards through the snow!)
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cajuns
Joined: Apr 10, 2006
# Posts: 104
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Posted: 11/07/2007 06:02 am
Thanks Excell!
I really appreciate it. Oh, did I understand what you meant about putting index.htm in all folders, or am I all wrong again? LOL!
Oh boy, looks like I have a website to redo, sounds like sooooo much fun!
Thanks again!
Cajuns
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excell
Staff
Joined: Mar 19, 2001
# Posts: 14502
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Posted: 11/07/2007 06:10 am
The way your website is now - yes each folder should have a section index page which I would make as a summary or overview of what is in each section which links to the other pages etc.
BUT if you check out drupal you will see that it is done differently and you can set up categories (taxonomy) and name your urls / pages anything sensible.
Have a look at some of the basic drupal info drupal.org and then do a few searches on the terms: seo, pathauto, friendly URLs etc.
Have fun - I think you will be suprised at how this could really suit you and help you.
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excell
Staff
Joined: Mar 19, 2001
# Posts: 14502
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Posted: 11/07/2007 06:12 am
Also, don't forget - I am just one person, with one idea of what you could do. Listen to the other knowledgable folks around here as well there might be other ideas. One thing I know is that everyone will encourage you not to through the towel in after so much work on building community and content!
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cajuns
Joined: Apr 10, 2006
# Posts: 104
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Posted: 11/07/2007 06:13 am
Okay, sounds good to me!
Thanks so much again for your time. I really love this forum, and have had major help here.
Have a wonderful day, and I'll be back and let you know how it's going.
Cajuns
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g1smd
Staff
Joined: Jul 28, 2002
# Posts: 10255
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Posted: 11/07/2007 03:20 pm
If you do have index pages in folders, remember that the correct way to link to them is you use "/foldername/" in the link, ending with a trailing slash, and without mentioning the name of the index file itself.
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beth_lk
Staff
Joined: Jun 23, 2004
# Posts: 1126
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Posted: 11/07/2007 06:56 pm
I learn so much reading other peoples posts
I do have a question about this subject though.
so ( as example ) a toy file/page would look like such. ( spaces included on purpose to make my example non active )
http://www. xyz.com/toys/dolls/
or
http://www. xyz.com/toys/dolls.htm
Much Appreciated,
Beth
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g1smd
Staff
Joined: Jul 28, 2002
# Posts: 10255
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Posted: 11/07/2007 07:07 pm
Yes. Those are the two most common formats.
Omit the filename if it is an index file.
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cajuns
Joined: Apr 10, 2006
# Posts: 104
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Posted: 11/08/2007 10:21 am
Hi g1smd
I had answered your post, but my reply has disappeared. I don't know if I did something wrong when posting, or if it got deleted for some reason. If a moderator deleted it, I'm sorry, I don't know what I said to get it deleted?
I had thanked you for your help, and told you that no, I didn't know that was the correct way to link to index pages in folders. Thanks for pointing that out.
I have a question on that, if I do change a page in a folder to index.htm should I delete the one I changed from my server, if I do a 301 redirect to the new index page in that folder?
Thanks again
Cajuns
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g1smd
Staff
Joined: Jul 28, 2002
# Posts: 10255
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Posted: 11/08/2007 01:28 pm
If you have a file called /cars/red.html and you replace it with the file /cars/red/index.html then you should:
- link to "/cars/red/" or to "www.domain.com/cars/red/" in the links on your site, and
- set up a 301 redirect from the old URL to the new URL.
It doesn't matter if you delete the old file or not. The redirect occurs immediately you call the old URL. The server issues the redirect, and completely ignores the file on the hard-drive that it would have otherwise served to the user. I always remove the old files, as they are just cluttering the place up.
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g1smd
Staff
Joined: Jul 28, 2002
# Posts: 10255
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Posted: 11/08/2007 01:29 pm
I don't know where your previous post went.
I don't think anyone deleted it.
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cajuns
Joined: Apr 10, 2006
# Posts: 104
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Posted: 11/09/2007 08:16 am
Knowing me, I probably forgot to hit the "post message" button!
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g1smd
Staff
Joined: Jul 28, 2002
# Posts: 10255
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Posted: 11/09/2007 02:41 pm
You should also set up a 301 redirect from "/index.html" to "/" to fix the problems.
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cajuns
Joined: Apr 10, 2006
# Posts: 104
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Posted: 11/11/2007 01:44 pm
Okay, you stumped me this time, if you are answering my post. Sorry, not sure what you mean on that.
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pdfmania
Joined: Nov 23, 2007
# Posts: 2
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Posted: 11/23/2007 06:53 am
Long time to reply... should wait for another years for next anwers
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g1smd
Staff
Joined: Jul 28, 2002
# Posts: 10255
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Posted: 11/23/2007 11:42 am
As it happens, I have been away since November 12th.
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mj1256
Joined: Jun 05, 2006
# Posts: 847
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Posted: 11/23/2007 08:33 pm
what do you want answered, the 301 redirect how to?
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