Google contain the term / links related to pr ?

[gaudi]

Hi I have a site www.patrickegan.org where I am selling an educational dvd on architechture.I have 2 links and 15 'contain the term' ,but a lot of the 'contain the term' are active links, is this because they do not have as high a page rank as my 2 links (which are from google and dmoz ) ?. Also I have spent time optimising my site for the keyword 'antonio gaudi' but I have been stuck at 19 in google for the last 3 months with few hits, any ideas ?,
thanks ! :lol:

[hangin321]

Google partly bases a site ranking on how many people click on the link. So sites at the top of the ranking get clicked more often, thus tend to stay at the top. I would suggest having your friends type in keywords for your site, finding your link in the search results, and clicking on it. Having a few people do it a few times a week should help. I've gotten a site to top ranking like this. Good luck.

[Dani]

I disagree. Google ranks the sites which participate in Google AdWords partly based on how many people click on them. However, Google does not rate its normal search results this way. In fact, based on computer principles, it's actually impossible for Google to determine which link in search results you click on. (Unless you are using the Google toolbar for Internet Explorer.)

You see, according to networking principles, your computer sends a request to Google's server for search results. Google's server runs its backend scripts and then sends your computer the HTML code it outputs. Your computer's web browser then displays that HTML code, which is what you see. The HTML code that Google sends your browser contains static text links to all of the search results. That means that there is no more interaction with the Google server. You click on any search result, and the only ones who know it are you and your computer. By clicking on a search result, your computer then directly sends a request to the search result's web server. When that server responds, the HTML code it returns replaces the Google HTML code in your web browser.

[hangin321]

All I can tell you is that it works!
You can also influence page rank by having other sites link to yours. Google "says" that is the biggest determining factor, but I've never seen much difference. Google "says" you can determine how many sites link to yours by searching like this: 'link:www.YOURURL.com' but it doesn't really give you accurate results. What is "said" and what is true tend to be different.
The bottom line is, there is no definite way to get high page rank - else everyone would do it.

[Sideshow Bob]

Google partly bases a site ranking on how many people click on the link.

Hi hangin,

That's completely incorrect. Google has publicly stated that clickthrough ratio has nothing to do with their ranking algorithm. If you have access to WMW, Googleguy has spoken about this at length.

Adwords are a different beast completely, and it is a common mistake to assume that what is so for adwords will be the same for natural search.

Gaudi,

As to your original question,

Probably the most important factor in the current Google algorithm is backlinks. What I recommend to you is to engage on an aggressive linking campaign. Do some searches for related keywords, and write to the webmasters asking to do a reciprocal link exchange. Just make sure that the page that they link to you from and the one you link to them from is NOT called links, link, links1, and so on. Google has placed a filter on those pages so the backlinks will not benefit you in any way. A good choice would be "resources" or "partners", things like that.

While you're waiting to hear back from the 200 emails you send out (i'm not exaggerating), you will want to work on your on-page seo a bit.

First thing is to change your title to whatever your keyword is - "architectural dvd", and then your subsequent keywords following.

Your H1 tag is in a good position, but you want to get the elements of your primary keywords in the H1 (this should be an H1, not just a change through using <font> tags - make any alterations to style with an external style sheet). again, if you're going for "architectural dvd", then it should sAY "architectural dvd" and then below in an h2, you can say Antonio Gaudi DVD to get that in.

If you're targeting Antionio Gaudi DVD's, then of course your titles/headers and so forth should change accordingly.

Using H2's to seperate content areas and paragraphs allows you to create more targeted sections, and since H2 tags carry more weight, that is of course beneficial as well.

One last thing - I would very strongly reccommend exporting your javascript at the top of the page to an external file. Text location in code matters, and by having your javascript in the file, all you're doing is pushing the relevant content further down.

(I've noticed you have a links page - called links :))

[Sideshow Bob]

You see, according to networking principles, your computer sends a request to Google's server for search results. Google's server runs its backend scripts and then sends your computer the HTML code it outputs. Your computer's web browser then displays that HTML code, which is what you see. The HTML code that Google sends your browser contains static text links to all of the search results. That means that there is no more interaction with the Google server. You click on any search result, and the only ones who know it are you and your computer. By clicking on a search result, your computer then directly sends a request to the search result's web server. When that server responds, the HTML code it returns replaces the Google HTML code in your web browser.

Dani,

It would still be techinically possible for Google to track where you went, using javascript and a jumpscript to track (javascript to show the real destination in the status bar, and jumpscript for tracking) and the lay-user would be none the wiser, but if you look at the source, you're right, it's just plain old boring HTML with nothing hidden in there.

Personally, I don't think Google really cares. Google is a spider-based engine, and it doesn't matter to them what link you click on in natural search.

[hangin321]

"Google has publicly stated that clickthrough ratio has nothing to do with their ranking algorithm."
Like I said, What is "said" and what is true tend to be different. Believe what you want. I've made it work - however this was a while back so things might have changed.
At a glance, it looks like Yahoo still tracks clicks, but I haven't investigated it.

[DigitalExtreme]

Good post all. Its nice to see some past with credibility.