Find out who is linking to your site.

**DaveTodd** · 07-20-2002, 01:09 PM

thankx. someone else pointed out i needed to change the css. i've changed it to white now. i think the white goes with the blue, as it is the primary background colour. do the buttons look okay as being red? or do these need changing as well? what would you advise?
if you could take another look and reevaluate it i'd be most appreciative.

thankyou for your time

**HeidiLynn** · 07-20-2002, 01:12 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by DaveTodd
thankx. someone else pointed out i needed to change the css. i've changed it to white now. i think the white goes with the blue, as it is the primary background colour. do the buttons look okay as being red? or do these need changing as well? what would you advise?
if you could take another look and reevaluate it i'd be most appreciative.

thankyou for your time

Looks better in white and yes I would change the little squares to be white also. They don't look right in red and they should match with the text mouseover...

**DaveTodd** · 07-20-2002, 01:18 PM

righty, this means image editing then

i'm getting adobe photoshop soon, its good isn't it? gonna be expensive, but i'm hoping it'll be worth it.
those updates will be done in just a few seconds...
file sucessfully changed

let me know what you think. does this look better? are there any other areas i should have picked up on that i've neglected?
you may need to refresh the site or clear your temporary internet files as the rollover image will already be cached

**WandaCox** · 07-20-2002, 01:27 PM

thanks Drach, for the link tip.. it's a new one too me..

we've used these free services, you may want to check them out as well.

Keeps track of all links in to your site. It's free

http://www.addme.com/linkwatch.htm

Pretty good tool. Key in your site name & the 'keywords' related to your site, and this tool kicks back a complete page rank report of all major engines.
Pretty handy.

http://www.rankpilot.com/

* check your competitors too!

www.MarketLeap.com

**keithd** · 07-22-2002, 07:30 PM

Interesting, but does the link engine only work for google or other search engines too? It would really be usefull if it worked for all of the major search engines.

**HeidiLynn** · 07-22-2002, 07:51 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by keithd
Interesting, but does the link engine only work for google or other search engines too? It would really be usefull if it worked for all of the major search engines.

Yes it would but it depends on if the search engine supports the search: link:http://www.yoursite.com

**DaveMo~** · 07-22-2002, 11:16 PM

Maybe some energetic member will do the legwork for trying the link command.

Code:

link:http://www.yoursite.com

If someone does, please list them here.

Dave

**dvduval** · 07-22-2002, 11:25 PM

I will emphasize that www.marketleap.com provides this info and each engine can be checked manually also, not to mention it has a feature that tells how many pages the engines have indexed from your site.

To check this on Google use:
-obscurewordnotonsite site: www .mysite. com

**ghettocars** · 07-23-2002, 06:33 AM

hmmm imma make an account with trackengine see how that works out and then ill make one with marketleap to test them both out.

**webbuilder** · 07-25-2002, 10:40 PM

This is GREAT! you are my man!

**DaveTodd** · 07-30-2002, 08:55 AM

finally!! i have SE listings in HotBot and MSN. Allbeit its not my site thats listed, but i do have sites linking to mine. its from guestbooks thus far, but it shows MSN and HotBot have recently refreshed their indexing.

For some reason I have links to my site in the index, but my actual site is not included. Can anyone shed any light as to why this is?

**Darkfire001** · 07-30-2002, 02:55 PM

Same thing happaned to me in that I kept applying to Google and then finally when I got ranked it wasnt because of my efforts but rather because of posting in forums.

**ghettocars** · 07-30-2002, 02:58 PM

I checked out marketleap and trackengine, it seems they both work pretty good, I like it a lot. I would recommend trackengine more though.
lol sorry for posting so much later its that i post everywhere and havent been able to track where ive posted.

**DaveTodd** · 07-30-2002, 03:07 PM

i'm still trying to get trackengine to work for me. i'll have another go tonight i think.
marketleap looks like an invaluable resource, i would definately recommend it to everyone. www.marketleap.com - gives back links, shows what pages are in waht indexes, allows you to compare with other sites etc etc etc, its great!!

**Mamoza** · 09-01-2002, 03:59 AM

marketleap is a very good link, i would recomend it to everyone.. tks to share the information....

Manon

**DaveTodd** · 09-01-2002, 07:37 AM

i now have my whole site listed in google, but only google. with a PR of 2 at present, its nothing to shout about.

is there anything outside of standard optimisation that can be done to improve my rankings? i mean, other than optimising the pages and getting links, does anyone have any hidden tips for attracting people?

**dvduval** · 09-01-2002, 11:38 AM

In this order I would say you need:
1) A good page title
2) Incoming links
3) More internal pages that link to the homepage
4) A good navigation bar that points to the important pages from every page on your site.
Each page you write should have some good content and repeat the words in the title at least once. Keep adding to your site. As your site grows, the number of reasons people have to visit you will grow. Never hurts to install a forum like this so that other people can help your site grow.

**DaveTodd** · 09-02-2002, 05:01 AM

a forum is a good idea, but not for a "newly opened" site.

if you don't have sufficient traffic to populate it, it will be stagnant and people will perceive your site to be unpopular. until you are getting minimum 50+ uniques/day, don't even consider a forum.

once your traffic picks up, announce it as "coming soon" while you install it, preview it, tweak it, reskin it etc. then launch it.

Page titles are vital. It rhymes because its true! i've just written an article on the importance of page titles, because they really can make or break your site with search engines etc.

Incoming links, we should all know by now just how important many good links are, its been drilled into us over and over, its a basic ingredient for success amongst the billions of other pages on the web.

Internal links to the homepage...interesting. Is this to get the homepage spidered more? or is there some other reason? is it just for ease of use for the person on the site?

a good navigation system is another essential. if pages are hard to find, people won't stick around to find them, they'll go somewhere else, get the navigation right and you can hold onto many many more of your visitors for longer.

content content content. its soo important to have quality content. people won't come to your site if you don't have what they want. if you have what they want but they can't find it, they'll leave and you've gained nothing. if you have what they want and they find it, they'll come back, winner!!

give the user what they want and they'll come back for more. if you starve them, they'll leave and look elsewhere, its that simple

**dvduval** · 09-02-2002, 11:40 AM

Internal links:
Apparently, all internal pages count toward the page rank of the pages they link to. Additionally, Google can grant 'hub status' to sites that meet certain criteria, one of the criteria being a wealth of content (lots of pages). So in answer to your question, more internal links contribute to the page rank of the home page. You mentioned spidering of internal pages by search engines. This would only happen in three ways:
1) You manually submit (old school)
2) The internal page is well linked because you have a good navigation system.
3) Another site links to an internal page--happens all the time.

Dave, I believe it's OK to go ahead and start a forum if:
1) The webmaster sees to it that regular posts are made. A good way to do this is to start with an "Announcements" category. If a webmaster posts three times per day for a month, the site will have an additional 270 pages in 3 months and over 1000 in a year. I'm sure after a year people will be coming.
2) You tweak the forums to have good page titles. Then the forum pages will be found by the search engines. I recommend the title be displayed in this format:
Subject of Post - Category - Site Name
Often the site name is displayed first such as on Webmaster Talk. I believe this reduces the weight of the keywords in the post title.
3) You are proactive in bringing people to the forums (a topic in its own right).

**DaveTodd** · 09-02-2002, 11:51 AM

i never knew that internal links counted toward the rank of other pages. thus, having a good navigation system REALLY benefits your site. not only making it easier for users to get around, but actually improving your search engine rankings as well.

as far as getting spidered goes, i get links from other pages. manual submissions rarely work very well, as i've found from previous expierience. the best, the only, way for me, to get yourself visible on the web, is good links, and lots of them. that way the search engines find you, and they stay with you.

other sites linking to internal pages on your site will improve their rank, naturally. bringing traffic to any page on your site, not just the homepage, is a good thing.

as far as full-on forums like W-T go, i'd still stick to not having one until i had sufficient traffic to populate it. just my own personal opinion. sure, posting lots yourself would give you many, many more pages of content, but if they're short announcement posts, they're not really essential.

having 5 visitors a day and 1000 pages of content don't add up. far better to have 50 visitors a day and 100 pages of content, and then work on both - just my 2c