Hoping to pick the brains of some old pros!

This thread has already taught me alot. I just discovered a dress buried as an omitted duplicate. I very recently began using mfr descriptions on some lines, as other competitors do.

Now, re-upload via easypopulate some additional text to make it different.

SPH:

I guess one can learn something new everyday.
.....................................
Shows the entries that google has discovered the test product on and, I think, their order of ranking. Much shorter list.

Another (less obvious?) way to obtain the listings of the WB 'product' and nothing else, is to refine the search query itself.

For example, a search for: +"Wurldbitzer Debibulator" +"Lain led and fact none"

Will provide a list of the nine sites that are still using the original WB product description (or at least something near the original).

Cheers
Rod

Excellent, RodG! Don't understand the terms, though, that would product only original description results. Way more advanced than I.

I also just noted tonight that my prom-mart.com/demo-3 entry hit for the test product - Ultimate SEO URL. And as I thought, because it its template switcher the google cache is using the Classic template.

SPH:

Excellent, RodG! Don't understand the terms, though,

Hmm, OK, I see an explanation is in order :)

Firstly the the purpose of the quotes around "Wurldbitzer Debibulator" and "Lain led and fact none" is to tell Google that you are looking an exact phrase (or in this case, 2 exact phrases). This prevents Google from displaying listings that contain "Wurldbitzer" without "Debibulator" or "Debibulator" without "Wurldbitzer".
This one isn't particularly important, but the other one "Lain led and fact none" is very important. Without the quotes Google will display millions of pages that contain any** one** of those words.

The + signs in front of the two phrases is telling Google that the pages displayed must contain both phrases. Without the + signs it will display pages that contain "Wurldbitzer Debibulator" OR "Lain led and fact none"

The phrase "Wurldbitzer Debibulator" as you already know, is 'unique' to our test product.
The phrase "Lain led and fact none" was something I selected pretty much at random from our 'gibberish' description. I figured that this particular phrase isn't likely to be found on any other website.

Putting all this together means that Google will only find our test sites where the description hasn't been changed to remove "Lain led and fact none".

As I said I selected this pretty much at random, but any 'unique' phrase (from the gibberish description) will achieve the same results.

As a side note, if you use the - sign instead of the plus sign, that is telling Google to only show the pages that don't contain the phrase that follows it. This can be very useful if you perform a search and wish to narrow the results returned... For example
+"Wurldbitzer Debibulator" -"New Products" will cause Google to display all pages with "Wurldbitzer Debibulator" but it will exclude those 'ancillary links' that are a result of WB being listed as a 'New product'.

You don't need to use 'phrases' for this, single words will work in the same way. Phrases just tend to be a lot more 'unique' than single words.

Oh, FWIW, this isn't just a 'Google' thing either. All of the different SE's have the same (or similar) syntax (not to mention many other programs/applications). It is an 'unofficial syntax' that has been around for as long as I can remember.

SPH:

Way more advanced than I

Not any longer :)

There are a lot of other similar 'tricks', but not all supported by all SE's. Most of the others I don't use, but the +- "phrase" syntax is something I could never live without... it is a very powerful method of boring down into the SE listings to find exactly what I'm looking for. It is rare time that I'll use Google and click on links to pages that don't contain what I'm searching for. Practice and play with it. You'll never know how you did without it either.

Cheers
Rod

Thanks again, Rod. I bet I will no longer live without it, either. Too bad customers probably don't even use google's Advanced Search. I only discovered it the other night.

SPH:

Too bad customers probably don't even use google's Advanced Search. I only discovered it the other night.

FWIW, This is one one of the very first things that I (and many/most/all of my peers) try to teach people that are just starting out with computers and getting online for the 1st time. It is an invaluable lesson that helps them with further studies (or simply to just find what they are looking for from the millions of listings that invariably result from a 'simple' search).

This is right up there with the CTRL-c and CTRL-v keypress shortcuts. :)

Cheers
Rod

It's been 5 days and my sites are still showing up at the top or near the top. Goes to show that it takes Google some time to update changes.

RodG, It looks like your product no. 222 is moving ahead of my fashion-mart.biz (Simple SEO URL). Have you been tweaking things?

I recently changed templates, twice, on this site so am wondering if that is a factor.

Hope not, as I also just changed main site prommart.com's template twice: now going back to Cherry Zen. Think I like Cherry Zen template better and there were a couple of issues with the other two.

SPH:

RodG, It looks like your product no. 222 is moving ahead of my fashion-mart.biz (Simple SEO URL). Have you been tweaking things?

The last change I made to our site was the addition of product#223 a few weeks ago. No other changes since then.

product#222 (The original Wurldbitzer Debibulator entry) has never had any changes. It is exactly the same as when it was 1st entered into the store.

Speaking of changes though. I've noticed that Google have made changes this weekend. I find I can no longer access google.com. No matter which browser I try, it always redirects me to google.com.au. Oddly, I can still access google.co.uk without any problems.

If there are any other Aussies reading this post, can you please confirm that you can't access google.com either?

This is posing a bit of a problem for me, because the results returned by the .au site aren't the same that are returned by the .com site (but we knew that already), the problem is, I no longer have an easy way to compare the difference.

The google.com.au site currently shows the following as the top five listings

Wurldbitzer Debibulator : VCSWEB Online Store!, You never know ...
shop.vcsweb.com › Odds 'n Sods

Odds 'n Sods : VCSWEB Online Store!, You never know what you ...
shop.vcsweb.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=3

New Products : VCSWEB Online Store!, You never know what you ...
shop.vcsweb.com/index.php?main_page=products_new...6...

New Products : Stratesys Group
www.stratesXXXXysgroup.com/index.php?main_page=products...

Wurldbitzer Debibulator - Sabianstore.com, All things Sabian!
sabianstore.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=5

I've no explanation why shop.vcsweb.com has managed to take top billing... The shop is hosted in USA, and there is nothing that I'm aware of that would indicate to Google that the store has any Australian connection. Perhaps someone else has some ideas?

Cheers
Rod

RodG:

I've no explanation why shop.vcsweb.com has managed to take top billing... The shop is hosted in USA, and there is nothing that I'm aware of that would indicate to Google that the store has any Australian connection. Perhaps someone else has some ideas?

It's the Rubik template. ;)

RodG:

Speaking of changes though. I've noticed that Google have made changes this weekend. I find I can no longer access google.com. No matter which browser I try, it always redirects me to google.com.au. Oddly, I can still access google.co.uk without any problems.

Well, that was a short lived change. Things are now back to normal :)

Cheers
Rod

Looks like my fashion-mart.biz (Simple SEO URL) is falling yet further behind. Wonder if it's:

1. my two recent template changes, or
2. all of RodG's and BN's "ancillary links" finally pushing them up, or
3. my text footer banner back-firing, or
4. Dynamic URL's being superior at least to Simple SEO URL, or
5. Them tweaking things on their sites, or
6. all of the above.

Observations: (ZenCart native vs 'Human friendly' URL's.)

Sites using the original WB product descriptions.
Actual product links only : 9
Top 5 listings have the ZenCart native URL's
The bottom 4 listings have the 'Human friendly' URL's.

Using the 'standard' search query "Wurldbitzer Debibulator"
Total links returned by Google : 453
Only ONE of the top forty listings have a 'Human friendly' URL. (#5). All of the others are ZenCart native.

Conclusion: Many will choose to dispute this 'because not all factors are taken into account', nonetheless in spite of many differences between the the stores under test, there is a clear and indisputable pattern emerging here: Google has a clear preference for the ZenCart native URL's over the 'Human friendly' URL's.

The monitoring continues.

Cheers
Rod

**URL Definitions (For the purposes of this discussion) **

Dynamic URL's : Meaninless as far as 'SEO' is concerned. **Please do not use this term in these discussions. **
A Dynamic URL could be 'Human friendly', 'Human unfriendly/Machine readable' or a combination of both (Complex URL's with KeyWords).

ReWritten URL's : Meaninless as far as 'SEO' is concerned. **Please do not use this term in these discussions. **
A ReWritten URL could be 'Human friendly', 'Human unfriendly/Machine readable' or a combination of both (Complex URL's with KeyWords).

**Machine readable URL's **: Contain no 'keywords'. Example "http://mydomain.com/main_page=product_info&cPath=3&products_id=222".

**Human friendly URL's **: Contain 'keywords'. Example "http://mydomain.com/Wurldbitzer_Debibulator".

Human UNfriendly URL's : See Machine readable URL's

Complex URL's : See Machine readable URL's
**
Complex URL's with KeyWords:** See Human friendly URL's
(example: http://mydomain.com/main_page= product_info&cPath=3&products_id=222&Wurldbitzer_Debibulator

SEO friendly URL's : Usually means 'Human friendly URL's' to most people. (A misnomer?). Avoid using this term. **
**
SEO optimised URL's: Usually means 'Human friendly URL's' to most people. (A misnomer?). Avoid using this term.

**ZenCart Native URL's : **See Machine readable URL's

I think those are the only terms that have been used in this discussion, but there has been an 'unusual' emphasis on
"Dynamic URL's" and "ReWritten URL's". Please DO NOT USE THESE TERMS because they don't provide any clues as to the actual format of the URL being discussed.

**Preferred terms (for this ZenCart forum discussion) are: **

'ZenCart Native' for when you mean 'Machine readable', 'Complex' or 'Human UNfriendly'
'Human friendly' for when you mean 'SEO friendly' or 'Complex URL's with KeyWords'

You are welcome/encouraged to specify the SEO tool/module that you are using to rewrite the 'ZenCart Native' URL' to a **'Human friendly' URL, but please keep in mind that the SE's don't know/care what tool you are using, or how the URL's are created. The only thing of importance to the SE's is the URL that they 'see', and this will only ever be a 'Complex/Machine readable' URL (of which Zencart native is an example), OR, it will be a 'Human friendly' URL. It can only ever be one or the other. (Complex URL's with KeyWords **are considered 'Human friendly' by virtue of the keywords alone).

Thanks for your consideration. If we stick to just the two preferred terms we should all know exactly what we are referring to.

Cheers
Rod

SPH:

Looks like my fashion-mart.biz (Simple SEO URL) is falling yet further behind. Wonder if it's:

1. my two recent template changes, or
2. all of RodG's and BN's "ancillary links" finally pushing them up, or
3. my text footer banner back-firing, or

Could be any or all of the above.

SPH:

4. Dynamic URL's being superior at least to Simple SEO URL, or

I assume you mean: 'ZenCart Native' URL's being superior 'Human Friendly' URLs' ? (if not, please elaborate)

My observations (two weeks apart) suggest that #4 is probably the case.

SPH:

5. Them tweaking things on their sites, or

I can't speak for BN, but our store hasn't had any changes since I added product#223 a few weeks ago,

SPH:

6. all of the above.

Definitely not all of the above.

Cheers
Rod

i have tweaked things on my on your bike site,

changed category name to Debibulators

Added Manufacturer name Wurldbitzer

Added a Model No. WD365655667

added a Manufacturer Description : Wurldbitzer is a leading Manufacturer of Debibulators, Renowned for Build Quality and Reliability Wurldbitzer has an extensive range of Alloy and Carbon Fibre Debibulators

before doing this i dont think i had any ancillary links and my main product link was only showing for me in omitted results,

im going to add an image as well.

the cs site is still same

bn

RodG:

Observations: (ZenCart native vs 'Human friendly' URL's.)

---

Sites using the original WB product descriptions.
Actual product links only : 9
Top 5 listings have the ZenCart native URL's
The bottom 4 listings have the 'Human friendly' URL's.

Don't know what you're looking at, but my results using your +"Wurldbitzer Debibulator" +"Lain led and fact none" search term and after clicking to show "omitted results" show that my human friendly urls currently are nos. 2, 3, 4 & 8 (with no. 8 being fashion-mart recently falling behind for some reason.)

Using the 'standard' search query "Wurldbitzer Debibulator"
Total links returned by Google : 453
Only ONE of the top forty listings have a 'Human friendly' URL. (#5). All of the others are ZenCart native.

That's primarily because duplicate results are omitted from the initial, general search, which tends to bury the test product itself.

But "zencart native urls" do pump-out alot of "ancillary links", seemingly more so than "human readable urls"...although fashion-mart seems to now have more.

BN:

before doing this i dont think i had any ancillary links
I've noticed alot of ancillary links for onyourbike

and my main product link was only showing for me in omitted results,

The actual test product in the omitted results is really the only link I'm interested in.

any ideas or things to try to see if i can get google to remove it from the omitted results

bn

I think we'd have to change the product "content" so that it is not duplicated with the other site's using the same "gibberish" text.

Try adding more description text, perhaps this time not using gibberish. Also might try bullet-points. That's what I intend to try shortly on my falling fashion-mart.