WiganWebs

Is correct, a simple 301 in your .htaccess file should solve the problem. I have seen instances where a blog post can overtake the index page, maybe because of similar content on the pages, but by removing the blog post and 301 redirecting it to the homepage always fixes the problem. It might be that having made recent changes to the structure of your site that Googlebot hasn't caught up yet, your old home.html may be still cached (check your cache date of home.html) with the original content and Googlebot can still spider it if it is still there (remember that even though a page could be deleted, it can still be cached depending on the last cache date), and if you use that same content on the new homepage then redirect (then delete) the old homepage and use a canonical tag on your new homepage to speed up the process: http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=139394 Googlebot is quick to pick up new content, but unfortunately it is vice-versa when it comes to removing pages and wanting them deindexed unless you use methods such as 301, or blocking access with robots.txt, or introducing a 'noindex' meta tag. Do not simply delete your old home.html page otherwise that will create a 404 that will report in Webmaster Tools. WW

Hi, I have been wondering for a while now, I do notice that a lot of web design companies leave a link at the bottom of the website linking back to the web design website. Of course there is nothing wrong with this, despite being on the same IP address, it is simply advertising the service. Yet, it is still a backlink. This got me thinking, what if you interlinked client websites that are based on the same IP address? The websites are of good quality, the content is of good quality, and we were thinking of hand picking a few clients and linking their websites together. These website may be on similar topic as we dont want to link websites that are not related. Does anyone do this? Of course we would ask permission first and we do know there are many ways for SEO, but this question has cropped up time and again and we are looking for a definite answer. The latest Google update was going for low quality websites, content scrapers, etc, but do we run the risk of tripping into a filter? We do other SEO to these websites and try to bring their authority status up, so two high profile website interlinking surely shouldn't be too bad? What about 3 or 4? Has anyone ever practiced this before? Cheers

HTMLGoodies.com is where I learned to code. There are many tools out there that do the designs for you, but it does help loads that you can understand & edit code where and whenever possible. Its not essential that you learn it all, just how it is structured and the basics should be a good start, sometimes the rest just falls into place due to intuition and trial and error.

The trick to exchanging related links is figuring out who it is going to benefit more. Exchanging links with related websites is a decent/good step, but do your research first. It has been pointed out that one way links are much better if done correctly. I can have a new(ish) PR1 website with 200 yahoo backlinks, and I get the chance for a PR4 website with 5000 yahoo backlinks, it will probably favour my new site more than the other because their trustrank should be much stronger than mine. The latter depends of course that the website you are exchanging links with has not adopted ant dodgy techniques and are currently under a penalty in Google, otherwise it could effect you too as you are deemed to be linking to a bad neighbourhood, so be careful when linking out. Things I check are: No penalties Alexa rank Pagerank of inner pages Domain age Number of newer pages indexed within last month or two Their homepage keywords and how well they rank for them 1 good link beats dozens of mediocre links. Build your trust with Google and then people will start contacting you for links automatically. Terry

Check that it is not fake PR If it is not fake, then the answer is no, many sites dont hold pagerank. There has been an update recently which my website dropped from PR3 to PR2 after being PR3 for 7-8 months. That being said, my rankings haven't really changed much. Many sites do hold pagerank and also increase on its current number due to natural linking from high PR pages. It depends on the quality of the backlinks, which sometimes you have to check manually. Dont worry too much about PR though, it may help when exchanging links, but it isn't an indicator of a websites true pagerank, which is generally hidden from human eyes By the way, PR6 for £50 sounds iffy to me, so I would check it out. A true PR6 should sell for way more than that.

If you can figure out the structure and coding of Wordpress then I would opt for it. Simply put, there is so much that you can do with it that even after 2 years of using it I am still learning myself. Its the best thing I ever turned to.

If you was to hire some outside help to try and get you some work, then how much commission would you give? A friend of mine has worked in sales in the past and has started his own B2B company and he mentioned that maybe he could work his sales magic to get me some work. He has quite a few contacts, many in the startup and small business side of things, and I am genuinely interested. BUT... he is a good friend and I dont want to undercut him, but at the same time I dont want to be too generous if it requires me putting more work in that I should. So, what is the going rate these days? Does 30% (after costs - which is about 8%-10%) sound fair? Is it too much? Not enough? I can understand they have bills to pay as most of his time is involved in telephone sales, but I also have to consider my own bills, hosting, domain name, software updates, etc. Any ideas? Thank you Terry

Another piece of advice I will give you is do not jump straight into search engine optimisation (the process of getting ranked in the search engines), especially in the gaming industry, it will be a tough nut to crack. Look into networking with like-minded people, follow their blogs, join in their conversations by posting informative comments, some allow you to leave a link pointing back to your website. If their blog is heavily followed then people will start to visit your blog/website. Join in forum conversations on forums which are heavily used by other gamers and film lovers. Some forums allow you to leave a link in your signature, but abide by their rules, again be creative in your answers and get to know the community around you. If your content is good, they will follow. Look into search engine optimisation is bits and bats as it can be confusing and stressful 'if' it doesn't work for you. There are so many techniques out there that some people tend to get lost in it all and give up. Its a long process so be prepared to put in some work, but dont give up because the end results are rewarding and as you build up your skills and knowledge then you can start to use them to your advantage.

Hmm, I'm not quite sure if I understand you correctly as it seems you already have sub-categories listed under your categories in your menu, I can click them fine. Just having a look through your content, if you want to rank then you need 'proper' content, i.e:- not copy/paste from another site. This will trip a duplicate content penalty in Google and that page will never rank for keywords. Be creative with your words, write a review if you have seen the films like Toy Story, write out what you like and dislike about the films, characters & plot. I know content creation can sometimes be a bore but it is also a necessity if you are serious about making a few quid off the internet, either by using Adsense or affiliate programs. I admire that you want to learn, but if you want somewhere to start then I would start with Wordpress or blogspot until you can grasp the basics of html/CSS coding and knowing where to join in the community to promote your site. They are good content management systems with a built in html editor. If you dive in too deep to begin with it will get tricky and may put you off. Like Weebly they are both free to use. I first learned html at HTML Buddies using just notepad, I'm sure others here will have some other good places to start. http://www.htmlgoodies.com/ Good luck

You could try affiliate programs within the gaming community, such as those multiplayer games, or playstation games exchange, etc. If you can hit the right audience then affiliate marketing can be more profitable than adsense. Work on your content & content presentation, every sentence is 4-5 words then a full-stop. Also leave a space after the full stop before you start your next sentence. A bit harsh, but content presentation means a lot. Colour coordination needs a little work, the grey link on orange background clashes a bit. If you want your website listed on Google you are going to need more content, more writing is what big G likes. You also need to learn what the basic elements of onpage search engine optimisation is, how to insert meta tags into your webpage, and how to research keywords related to your websites content. Welcome to web design

If you want to use Dreamweaver then you have jumped straight in at the deep end and I fear this could put you off. My advise, learn some basic html and css elements first before you tackle such a big program as Dreamweaver. It will make things easier in the long run. Another piece of advice, dont work with frames!

It seems to be quite popular, I have only recently signed up for it myself and I am looking at ways to make it work. Its too early to tell if it will work for me or not. Fill out a good profile, get involved in questions and group discussions, network with the community. That link doesn't work by the way, I can only view profiles of people within my network, change your profile link to be more SEO friendly, I wrote a post recently on my blog about it. http://www.wiganwebs.co.uk/linkedin-seo/ url structure should look like: http://uk.linkedin.com/in/terryburrows Still testing things myself and will be posting my ideas on my blog

I'm not 100% sure, but dont Napster offer prepaid cards? They also allow you to use Paypal as a third party between them and your bank.

Is it to the homepage? If the keyword is relevant then it could be caused by inbound anchor text. Another possibility: I have noticed a few glitches in Google where for certain keywords the content has not been updated, i.e:- my old snippetts are still showing, yet for other keywords my new content is ranking. How often is your content spidered? How long ago did you change your keywords? I'm not sure if this is true, or I am imagining it, but <meta> data seems to update less frequently than <body> data for certain keywords when I run a test in the search engines. Some pages update quicker than others, etc. Probably my imagination though. Check webmaster tools to see if you can find any data, such as strong inbound links, etc. I wouldn't worry about it too much though. Maybe it is an after effect of the caffeine update?

I started a new thread by accident replying to this Welcome to WDF, I hope you find it a useful resource of information. It is great when a hobby turns out to be something you can make a living from, I wish you all the best. WW