£4000 for an SEO analysis?

[GaryTheScubaGuy]

Thanks to Todd at http://www.TheCanadianGambler.com for allowing me to post his site for the potential benefit of all of us being able to look at the site to actually see referenced the website...kudos Mate

Here are a few issues I found, but to be fair this is one of the best sites I've seen in a while.

1. There are 8 outbound links to affiliate sites (Brightshare, Alladins and Bet365) using 302's. I would change these to 301's and also add a nofollow.

Yes, this webmaster dared to write a review or an article and decided to link to related products within the article, via a straight link, to the affiliate. Google likely automatically found the links, felt the site was abusing their paid link policy and slapped them with a penalty for it.

(More here; http://www.google.com/support/webmas...y?answer=66736)

This refers to Google treating outbound links as 'paid links' and therefor penalised this guys site.

A more common reason for 302's is Affiliate hijacking (using 302's) which was a big problem in the past (and even TODAY there are issues of this happening because Google has changed policy (yet again) on 301's and the way that they handle them. WebmasterWorld has a great thread I saw a few days ago with specific examples but can't seem to locate and I have a full plate. I'll try to find it again and amend this post after I have finished all the analysis requests (here it is - http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4327200.htm)…but the end game is this DO NOT USE 302's….period. There is no reason to.

(Here are many examples on Google's own forum; http://www.google.com/support/webmas...g+more%3Aforum)

Google themselves say to use 301, permanent rather than 302 temporary, redirects if you are moving or merging a site, and that's all 302's were really used for previously except hijacking a site. (http://www.google.com/support/webmas...y?answer=93633)

2. Add nofollows to ALL Affiliate links and banners

3. Optimise or redirect your 404 page.

4. Page Titles - This isn't a recommendation, this is Kudos…not ONE instance of duplicate titles. The best example I have seen of unique titles and proper URL structure. You should give lessons!

5. Descriptions - same as above excellent and unique. (except the rtg-slots and rtg-slots/page/2/ pages - plus you have a couple dozen links pointing back to this page as well)

6. Header tags - Great use of H!'s. I would add some H2's if feasible, as testing I have done in the past seems to indicate that Google, as well as others, will periodically ignore H1 tags because its widely assumed that this is a ranking factor and they try to prevent people like us trying to engineer results as much as we try to engineer them.

7. My crawler isn't picking up any images for some reason, but if you don't have alt and title tags on your images I would add them. Especially the branded images. This may help you on branded searches and add influence to the pages as well (in google's eyes)

8. This isn't criticism, just a recommendation - these are your strongest links. I would see about getting a few more.

Source URL: http://www.gamblingsitesdirectory.com/casinos
Anchor Text: canadian online casinos
Target URL: http://www.thecanadiangambler.com
23 Jun 2011

Source URL: http://www.gamblingsitesdirectory.com/casinos
Anchor Text: canadian online casinos
Target URL: http://www.thecanadiangambler.com
23 Jun 2011

Source URL: http://www.goodbonusguide.com
Anchor Text: online casino
Target URL: http://www.thecanadiangambler.com
24 Jun 2011

Source URL: http://www.betsage.com
Anchor Text: online casino canada
Target URL: http://www.thecanadiangambler.com
24 Jun 2011

Source URL: http://www.onlinecasinoreviewer.co.uk
Anchor Text: online casinos canada
Target URL: http://www.thecanadiangambler.com
23 Jun 2011

9. You are on a US server. If you can entertain moving to a Canadian or UK host (if you are targeting the UK) I would. I would also use geotargeting to tell google your primary geotarget is CA or UK. If you are targeting other regions (look at your current analytics to look at your 2nd and 3rd top referring regions). You may also consider building out subdomains and using regional hosting and geotargeting. This will definitely help when users use advanced search metrics like 'Results from…..).

10. You have a bit of house cleaning you can do to improve load time. Optimize images (I knew they were there somewhere) and put your content closer to the top of the page. You can use http://analyze.websiteoptimization.com to identify a few other tips.

Be sure to check back and keep us updated on any improvements!

Hope this helps.

GaryTheScubaGuy

Ps. Almost forgot; although your top 5 links are pointing to the index page, I would build any new ones to internal pages that are branded anchors. Especially Bet365 if it pays and converts like many do, plus the fact in performing a co.uk Google search (I'm in the UK) the top site I get when I do a brand search for bet365 (besides bet365.com's own site) is an Affiliate site that isn't even gaming specific. I see this as an opportunity. For that matter most of the results are Affiliate sites.

[GaryTheScubaGuy]

I get this more often than not;

Hi,

I recently posted about how my homepage wasn't ranking at all in google and whether this was a speed penalty. Well after following yours and others advice on the speed penalty thread it is now on page three of google for 'online casinos' - pretty amazing result, so wanted to say thanks for that.

That was in my PM box.

All I ask is if advice works please post it in the forums so others that need a kick in the ass can see its worth the effort.

Part of the reason I give free tips is that 99% of the rubbish you read is simply that. I test and test and test constantly. I wake up at 2, 4, 5 and 6 and check test results (rankings - yeah, it's sad but it's a disease) before I tell anyone anything. After all, most of the people I know earn their living doing this stuff...I can't afford be wrong.

Here's a question for you;Why don't you see SEO companies at Gaming conferences? Why aren't their more SEO's (career SEO's) in gaming forums? Where are the ones that stopped by only do drive-by's?

The answer; someone like bonusbetting, WinYourWayKyle, Anthony (GPWA) and davemerry (btw; send me that aff site and I'll have a look) called them out and they got scared off after bad advice I would imagine.

They don't show up at conferences for the same reason.

Everyone is an SEO expert these days.

The reality check? Become a Gaming Affiliate or post rubbish in a Gaming Affiliate forum.

I'll never forget a top Bingo Super Affiliate approached me at a conference a few years back and introduced himself as the guy I had been helping out in the forums for

"...the last 6 months"

and he had not seen any changes.

So I asked him when he had integrated the changes and he said,

" At least 2 weeks ago...".

After stating the obvious he eventually got back to me a few weeks later and said he regained his lost positions and earned a couple positions (and this was top 10 for 'Bingo').

The lesson? Get off yer bum and get busy!

(Oh, and post the results where everyone can see them)

[TheCanadianGambler]

Thanks Gary! I really appreciate you taking the time to have a look at my site!

[GaryTheScubaGuy]

Here's the next one (this is going to be a great one to watch as there are a ton of issues);

Hi GaryTheScubaGuy,

One of my websites (www.xxxxxxxxxx.xxx) ranks 2nd to 5th for the search phrase 'xxxxxxx xxxxxx xxxxxx'. I originally built this website without much content at all, and waited to see how competitive the search phrase was. It took about a year for it to go up the search engines with a website that had next to nothing on it. It was a 38 page website with about half the pages being casino reviews.

I have kept on adding pages including free instant play casino games, but can't get to the top spot. I also noticed that one of the casinos where I get most of my free casino games from have moved passed me for my main keyword.

I was hoping you can give me some advice on what I might be doing wrong with my onsite seo. The website has about 90 pages with 18 casino reviews and about 60 free casino games.

Also I link to my home page via my logo at the top and in the footer, should I have different link in the footer for each page or keep them all with the 'Instant Play Casino' anchor text.

Thanks,

xxxx

Hi xxxx,

You have some major issues on your site and we'll get to them, but first things first;

Your canonical isn't working or you have internal links pointing to your www and non www versions.

Go into Webmaster Central Tools (which is installed) and select which domain you want as your primary.

Search your domain after you do this, add a social bookmark or two and then ping it at pingler.com.

Once Google canonicalises it we can move forward (a day or two)

Actually the last time they crawled your site was June 15th so it may take a few days. Check it by clicking on 'cache' in a search.

Also, do a search for this query; site:www.yoursite.org and note Google sees 108 pages vs. your stated 90. They are seeing several duplicates and listing them but they aren't showing dozens of others, although they are seeing them. (unless the other pages are primary pages that you weren't counting)

See the problem?

Ps. When you are top 10 and competing with the likes of ladbrokes, willhill and paddy power you're doing something right though!

[GaryTheScubaGuy]

Just looking at your competition I think we can get you top 3 for that keyword string by the way.

FYI - top 3 in google means you get syndicated across their network which includes aol, netscape and iwon (to name a few) and your traffic triples.

[Jamie - RateMyCasino]

Hi Mate

You told me to post in this thread and you would take a look at my site. http://www.playersluck.com

[GaryTheScubaGuy]

Hi Jamie,

Am I to assume that regardless of the feedback you are okay with me posting your URI?

GaryTheScubaGuy

[GaryTheScubaGuy]

1. You have an unusual amount of 302's (affiliate banners) and 404's and 403's. Most of these point to your casino directory page. You probably removed this but forgot to 301 them or exclude them in your robots.txt file. You can also manually exclude these through Webmaster Central. Change the 302's to 301's and add nofollows. Mostly for the gravatar, and neteller links.

2. This banner (if the pages that it is on are indexed) is massive. compress the image or reduce its quality as it is causing timeouts for me and I am on fibre optic.
This one; http://www.playersluck.com/Banners/box42250.gif 240k

3. Optimise your 404 page. Some work and some do not. Look for cross-broeswer campatibility as I think this is the issue.

4. It would take a bit more digging, but for now look at your cannibalisation. I am finding www and non www pages.

5. Add a canonical tag pointing your .com to your .com/ page

6. Either allow your forum to be crawled or don't. You have a few of the directories blocked but there are back doors and google is seeing duplication od descriptions and this could potentially draw a penalty.

7 You have lots of duplicate H1 tags as well as 'Player Luck Online Casino' on a ton of your pages. Remove the 'Player Luck Online Casino' . All its doing is diluting a significant factor in the algorithms, especially when its first in all of them.

8. Slow down on building your links. The footprint does not look natural.

This was just a very quick crawl and an even quicker look. I assumed there was probably things to find, despite your endorsement of the response from the guy peddling SEO in the thread I found you on.

Fix these and come back for more.

[JaqiC]

Gary,

I just wanted to give you an update on how things are going on my website right now. I am in the process of making the changes that you suggested. Some of them, like the htaacess redirect, have been hard to get my brain around, but then easy to accomplish once I did. Others are just time consuming, like making sure that there are titles and alts on all of my images. They are actually written into the code, however, I had them placed wrong. As I have been going through each page, I have actually found other errors that I have been fixing along the way. This has also given me an opportunity to scutinize the content of each page, to make sure that it is more user friendly. I haven't changed much content yet, but plan on doing so after I complete all of the tasks that you laid out for me.

Thanks again for your help. I am already starting to see an increase in my traffic and in my seo ranking!

[GaryTheScubaGuy]

Hi Jackie,

Good news then.

Let me know what you are having trouble with and I'll help out.

I am having some very significant changes using the social tools I placed here
....really big changes.

[GaryTheScubaGuy]

For those of you that have sent me emails based on this thread, I hate to ask but could you send them through again? I have been hitting my mailbox limit and keep having to migrate the inquiries to keep it halfway empty and have lost a few in the haze.

Please resend your requests if I haven't responded. I'll email Michael and get him to increase my mailbox size today.

Cheers
Gary