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SEO question

Started by treehugger, August 12, 2010, 12:21:04 PM

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treehugger

Been having seo problems and trying to work out why by using Google Analytics/Webmaster tools.
It's a site for kids and they have to register before they see the forum - all I want search engines to pick up on are the boring html pages - F.A.Q., For Parents, Rules etc.

Under 'most common keywords Google found when crawling your site' are - forum, board, post, profile, smf, png, topic etc..  When I look at 'Your site on the web/Search queries I get:
      
country kids,  xxx,  countryside friends,  exclamation icon,  sealed with a kiss,  smiley kiss,  disc icon and loads of other smileys. Anyone any ideas why smileys are showing?

If I do a normal Google search and put the whole site name into Google I get:
1st - XXX kids countryside friends online site, forum, arcade, gallery etc  XXX is a 'grown-up' type of site where kids can have fun, make new friends and talk about the things which interest you. We provide you with the basics and ...
www.mysite.co.uk/ - Cached - Similar

2nd - Parents Page for XXX, a Fun Site for Kids who like Nature, Animals ...  My Site has been created to give 8 -14 year old children who like animals and the countryside, a safe cyber place to visit. ...
www.mysite.co.uk/parents.html - Cached

3rd - Index of /.smileys  Apache/2.2.11 (Unix) mod_ssl/2.2.11 OpenSSL/0.9.7a mod_auth_passthrough/2.1 mod_bwlimited/1.4 FrontPage/5.0.2.xxxx Server at mysite.co.uk Port ...
mysite.co.uk/.smileys/ - Cached

If I put anything other than the full web address into Google search we don't show at all - either that or we're too far back to find. I did the titles and keywords carefully, so why are smileys taking over?

青山 素子

Quote from: treehugger on August 12, 2010, 12:21:04 PM
If I do a normal Google search and put the whole site name into Google I get:

**snip**

3rd - Index of /.smileys  Apache/2.2.11 (Unix) mod_ssl/2.2.11 OpenSSL/0.9.7a mod_auth_passthrough/2.1 mod_bwlimited/1.4 FrontPage/5.0.2.xxxx Server at mysite.co.uk Port ...
mysite.co.uk/.smileys/ - Cached

You should disable directory indexes.


Quote from: treehugger on August 12, 2010, 12:21:04 PM
If I put anything other than the full web address into Google search we don't show at all - either that or we're too far back to find. I did the titles and keywords carefully, so why are smileys taking over?

How old is the site? How many backlinks do you have? How good is the content that can be seen? Does that content contain relevant keywords with which you want to be found? Do backlinks contain relevant keywords?

They are probably taking over because you have so little content on the pages that non-content areas are being weighed heavier than they should. Also, it might be due to having directory indexes enabled.
Motoko-chan
Director, Simple Machines

Note: Unless otherwise stated, my posts are not representative of any official position or opinion of Simple Machines.


treehugger

Thank you for your reply. :)

Please will you explain what You should disable directory indexes. means and where I should do it - i.e. is it in SMF or cpanel?

The site is about 9 months old, there is quite a lot of text on my html pages and it includes words which I think people will search for and those words are in my keywords.

treehugger

Can anyone else explain what 'disable directory indexes' means please?

Ensiferous

It means if there is no index page it will list the contents instead. This is a cpanel (apache really) setting you need to change.
My Latest Blog Post: Debugging Nginx Errors

treehugger

Thank you Ensiferous.

On another site I found: IndexIgnore *   The * is a wildcard that matches all files, so if you stick that line into an htaccess file in your images directory, nothing in that directory will be allowed to be listed. so I've put that into the smileys directory and will see if it solves the problem next time my site is crawled.

wynnyelle

This is a little complicated for me but what I do know is that if your website's avatars, images, smileys etc were available at one time in the past Google captured the internet address of the images, and will retain them even if they are no longer accessible by guests. If a guest can key in the address of a smiley on your site and it pops up, it is guest accessible even if your forum is not.

Search engines can supposedly only crawl sites that guests can see. They cheat all the time though with content you have to pay to see. Go figure.

青山 素子

Quote from: Groovystar on August 16, 2010, 12:00:18 AM
Search engines can supposedly only crawl sites that guests can see. They cheat all the time though with content you have to pay to see. Go figure.

That's actually a problem with the site managers. Either they allow the IPs or user agents of the crawlers to view the blocked content. This is specifically banned for Google and is called cloaking. If you detect a search result that shouldn't exist, report the site.

Note that some sites, like experts-exchange, post the content at the bottom of the page and use a cookie to block even that after so many page views. Search engines don't handle cookies so they never get blocked. Likewise, if you disable cookies for the site, blocking won't occur. This makes it a tactic that passes the rules.
Motoko-chan
Director, Simple Machines

Note: Unless otherwise stated, my posts are not representative of any official position or opinion of Simple Machines.


treehugger

Thank you Groovystar. :)

Sorry Motoko but what you are saying is way over my head. :-[


lastnico

Use the following Apache directive for your virtual host:


Options -Indexes



Hope it helps...

青山 素子

I'm not sure if this is 100% correct, but you can look at the "Directory index protection" section over at http://webhostcontrolpanels.com/index.php/advanced-cpanel-functions
Motoko-chan
Director, Simple Machines

Note: Unless otherwise stated, my posts are not representative of any official position or opinion of Simple Machines.


treehugger

Thank you for that link Motoko - it was certainly easy to do and now I just have to wait until the site is crawled again to see if it works. :)

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