My new website

[swirt]

I know there is still al of of stuff I need to get done with our site but I have played with the page titles as a way to (hopefully) optimize our results on search engines.
I notice the search engines have not been picking up on the changes and that they still return results with the old titles. Any idea how long it takes for these changes to start getting picked up by Google?.

The amount of time depends a lot on how many incoming links you have to your site. The more incoming links, the more often the spiders will stumble into the site and crawl the site to grab the new info. Also the rate of content changes will "train" the spiders a bit. Example: googlebot crawls this site every 20 minutes or so while a B&B site that only changes once a year may only get crawled once a month.

 

[reYOOPERed]

I know there is still al of of stuff I need to get done with our site but I have played with the page titles as a way to (hopefully) optimize our results on search engines.
I notice the search engines have not been picking up on the changes and that they still return results with the old titles. Any idea how long it takes for these changes to start getting picked up by Google?.

The amount of time depends a lot on how many incoming links you have to your site. The more incoming links, the more often the spiders will stumble into the site and crawl the site to grab the new info. Also the rate of content changes will "train" the spiders a bit. Example: googlebot crawls this site every 20 minutes or so while a B&B site that only changes once a year may only get crawled once a month.
.

Thanks.
What do you think of my page titles? I understand if you are too busy to check em out but I read your site and that's what I came up with from the advice on there. I might have misfired though by not focusing on search phrases and more on key words.

 

[swirt]

I know there is still al of of stuff I need to get done with our site but I have played with the page titles as a way to (hopefully) optimize our results on search engines.
I notice the search engines have not been picking up on the changes and that they still return results with the old titles. Any idea how long it takes for these changes to start getting picked up by Google?.

The amount of time depends a lot on how many incoming links you have to your site. The more incoming links, the more often the spiders will stumble into the site and crawl the site to grab the new info. Also the rate of content changes will "train" the spiders a bit. Example: googlebot crawls this site every 20 minutes or so while a B&B site that only changes once a year may only get crawled once a month.
.

Thanks.
What do you think of my page titles? I understand if you are too busy to check em out but I read your site and that's what I came up with from the advice on there. I might have misfired though by not focusing on search phrases and more on key words.
.

Sorry, yes you did focus too much on keywords and not enough on what the majority of people will be searching for.
Examples:

• Your about us page title of "Hosts Meghan and Robert ***'s Bed and Breakfast" is the kind of title you'd use if you want your friends and family to find your place. If you want people that would actually pay to stay with you, you might be better off with something like "Gladstone Michigan Lodging"
• Your Accommodations page title of "Guest rooms include gourmet breakfast and Free Wireless Internet" is a bit too focused. People may be looking for these amenities, but they are unlikely to be searching for them. Since this is your accommodations page, you'd be better off with a title like "Gladstone Michigan Accommodations."

Tuning them to the topic of the page is a win win. Sometimes it is hard to get the topic and the target to line up, but you have to. IT doesn't do any good to have a page title where the text of the page does not in some way represent the title.

• Your reservations page title of 'Michigan Lodging Reservations for Escanaba, and Gladstone, in Delta County" is good, except there is no text on the page that uses those terms. IF the title is not supported by the on-page text then it is actually likely to lower the value of the page for those terms, because it looks like it is trying to be something it is not.

Pick the target phrase,for each page, then align all page elements (titles, headings, body text, meta description, meta keywords, and alt attributes) with that phrase.

 

[reYOOPERed]

I know there is still al of of stuff I need to get done with our site but I have played with the page titles as a way to (hopefully) optimize our results on search engines.
I notice the search engines have not been picking up on the changes and that they still return results with the old titles. Any idea how long it takes for these changes to start getting picked up by Google?.

The amount of time depends a lot on how many incoming links you have to your site. The more incoming links, the more often the spiders will stumble into the site and crawl the site to grab the new info. Also the rate of content changes will "train" the spiders a bit. Example: googlebot crawls this site every 20 minutes or so while a B&B site that only changes once a year may only get crawled once a month.
.

Thanks.
What do you think of my page titles? I understand if you are too busy to check em out but I read your site and that's what I came up with from the advice on there. I might have misfired though by not focusing on search phrases and more on key words.
.

Sorry, yes you did focus too much on keywords and not enough on what the majority of people will be searching for.
Examples:

• Your about us page title of "Hosts Meghan and Robert ***'s Bed and Breakfast" is the kind of title you'd use if you want your friends and family to find your place. If you want people that would actually pay to stay with you, you might be better off with something like "Gladstone Michigan Lodging"
• Your Accommodations page title of "Guest rooms include gourmet breakfast and Free Wireless Internet" is a bit too focused. People may be looking for these amenities, but they are unlikely to be searching for them. Since this is your accommodations page, you'd be better off with a title like "Gladstone Michigan Accommodations."

Tuning them to the topic of the page is a win win. Sometimes it is hard to get the topic and the target to line up, but you have to. IT doesn't do any good to have a page title where the text of the page does not in some way represent the title.

• Your reservations page title of 'Michigan Lodging Reservations for Escanaba, and Gladstone, in Delta County" is good, except there is no text on the page that uses those terms. IF the title is not supported by the on-page text then it is actually likely to lower the value of the page for those terms, because it looks like it is trying to be something it is not.

Pick the target phrase,for each page, then align all page elements (titles, headings, body text, meta description, meta keywords, and alt attributes) with that phrase.
.

That's exactly what I thought and why I asked.
It was actually a lot harder than I thought to come up with the titles and I had input from others that are not familiar with SEO (like my parents and wife) and that's why it wasn't aligning.
I'm going to change the titles and include the phrases on the page. Does it hurt to keep changing this stuff and do you think it could lead to a point in time where the spiders crawl my site and lower the value and then don't come back for a while?

 

[swirt]

I know there is still al of of stuff I need to get done with our site but I have played with the page titles as a way to (hopefully) optimize our results on search engines.
I notice the search engines have not been picking up on the changes and that they still return results with the old titles. Any idea how long it takes for these changes to start getting picked up by Google?.

The amount of time depends a lot on how many incoming links you have to your site. The more incoming links, the more often the spiders will stumble into the site and crawl the site to grab the new info. Also the rate of content changes will "train" the spiders a bit. Example: googlebot crawls this site every 20 minutes or so while a B&B site that only changes once a year may only get crawled once a month.
.

Thanks.
What do you think of my page titles? I understand if you are too busy to check em out but I read your site and that's what I came up with from the advice on there. I might have misfired though by not focusing on search phrases and more on key words.
.

Sorry, yes you did focus too much on keywords and not enough on what the majority of people will be searching for.
Examples:

• Your about us page title of "Hosts Meghan and Robert ***'s Bed and Breakfast" is the kind of title you'd use if you want your friends and family to find your place. If you want people that would actually pay to stay with you, you might be better off with something like "Gladstone Michigan Lodging"
• Your Accommodations page title of "Guest rooms include gourmet breakfast and Free Wireless Internet" is a bit too focused. People may be looking for these amenities, but they are unlikely to be searching for them. Since this is your accommodations page, you'd be better off with a title like "Gladstone Michigan Accommodations."

Tuning them to the topic of the page is a win win. Sometimes it is hard to get the topic and the target to line up, but you have to. IT doesn't do any good to have a page title where the text of the page does not in some way represent the title.

• Your reservations page title of 'Michigan Lodging Reservations for Escanaba, and Gladstone, in Delta County" is good, except there is no text on the page that uses those terms. IF the title is not supported by the on-page text then it is actually likely to lower the value of the page for those terms, because it looks like it is trying to be something it is not.

Pick the target phrase,for each page, then align all page elements (titles, headings, body text, meta description, meta keywords, and alt attributes) with that phrase.
.

That's exactly what I thought and why I asked.
It was actually a lot harder than I thought to come up with the titles and I had input from others that are not familiar with SEO (like my parents and wife) and that's why it wasn't aligning.
I'm going to change the titles and include the phrases on the page. Does it hurt to keep changing this stuff and do you think it could lead to a point in time where the spiders crawl my site and lower the value and then don't come back for a while?

.

Nope, no worries there. Change is good.

 

[YellowSocks]

I know there is still al of of stuff I need to get done with our site but I have played with the page titles as a way to (hopefully) optimize our results on search engines.
I notice the search engines have not been picking up on the changes and that they still return results with the old titles. Any idea how long it takes for these changes to start getting picked up by Google?.

The amount of time depends a lot on how many incoming links you have to your site. The more incoming links, the more often the spiders will stumble into the site and crawl the site to grab the new info. Also the rate of content changes will "train" the spiders a bit. Example: googlebot crawls this site every 20 minutes or so while a B&B site that only changes once a year may only get crawled once a month.
.

Thanks.
What do you think of my page titles? I understand if you are too busy to check em out but I read your site and that's what I came up with from the advice on there. I might have misfired though by not focusing on search phrases and more on key words.
.

Sorry, yes you did focus too much on keywords and not enough on what the majority of people will be searching for.
Examples:

• Your about us page title of "Hosts Meghan and Robert ***'s Bed and Breakfast" is the kind of title you'd use if you want your friends and family to find your place. If you want people that would actually pay to stay with you, you might be better off with something like "Gladstone Michigan Lodging"
• Your Accommodations page title of "Guest rooms include gourmet breakfast and Free Wireless Internet" is a bit too focused. People may be looking for these amenities, but they are unlikely to be searching for them. Since this is your accommodations page, you'd be better off with a title like "Gladstone Michigan Accommodations."

Tuning them to the topic of the page is a win win. Sometimes it is hard to get the topic and the target to line up, but you have to. IT doesn't do any good to have a page title where the text of the page does not in some way represent the title.

• Your reservations page title of 'Michigan Lodging Reservations for Escanaba, and Gladstone, in Delta County" is good, except there is no text on the page that uses those terms. IF the title is not supported by the on-page text then it is actually likely to lower the value of the page for those terms, because it looks like it is trying to be something it is not.

Pick the target phrase,for each page, then align all page elements (titles, headings, body text, meta description, meta keywords, and alt attributes) with that phrase.
.

That's exactly what I thought and why I asked.
It was actually a lot harder than I thought to come up with the titles and I had input from others that are not familiar with SEO (like my parents and wife) and that's why it wasn't aligning.
I'm going to change the titles and include the phrases on the page. Does it hurt to keep changing this stuff and do you think it could lead to a point in time where the spiders crawl my site and lower the value and then don't come back for a while?

.

Nope, no worries there. Change is good.

.

Nope, no worries there. Change is good.

How good?
Should our text on our websites change regularly?
=)
Kk.

 

[swirt]

I know there is still al of of stuff I need to get done with our site but I have played with the page titles as a way to (hopefully) optimize our results on search engines.
I notice the search engines have not been picking up on the changes and that they still return results with the old titles. Any idea how long it takes for these changes to start getting picked up by Google?.

The amount of time depends a lot on how many incoming links you have to your site. The more incoming links, the more often the spiders will stumble into the site and crawl the site to grab the new info. Also the rate of content changes will "train" the spiders a bit. Example: googlebot crawls this site every 20 minutes or so while a B&B site that only changes once a year may only get crawled once a month.
.

Thanks.
What do you think of my page titles? I understand if you are too busy to check em out but I read your site and that's what I came up with from the advice on there. I might have misfired though by not focusing on search phrases and more on key words.
.

Sorry, yes you did focus too much on keywords and not enough on what the majority of people will be searching for.
Examples:

• Your about us page title of "Hosts Meghan and Robert ***'s Bed and Breakfast" is the kind of title you'd use if you want your friends and family to find your place. If you want people that would actually pay to stay with you, you might be better off with something like "Gladstone Michigan Lodging"
• Your Accommodations page title of "Guest rooms include gourmet breakfast and Free Wireless Internet" is a bit too focused. People may be looking for these amenities, but they are unlikely to be searching for them. Since this is your accommodations page, you'd be better off with a title like "Gladstone Michigan Accommodations."

Tuning them to the topic of the page is a win win. Sometimes it is hard to get the topic and the target to line up, but you have to. IT doesn't do any good to have a page title where the text of the page does not in some way represent the title.

• Your reservations page title of 'Michigan Lodging Reservations for Escanaba, and Gladstone, in Delta County" is good, except there is no text on the page that uses those terms. IF the title is not supported by the on-page text then it is actually likely to lower the value of the page for those terms, because it looks like it is trying to be something it is not.

Pick the target phrase,for each page, then align all page elements (titles, headings, body text, meta description, meta keywords, and alt attributes) with that phrase.
.

That's exactly what I thought and why I asked.
It was actually a lot harder than I thought to come up with the titles and I had input from others that are not familiar with SEO (like my parents and wife) and that's why it wasn't aligning.
I'm going to change the titles and include the phrases on the page. Does it hurt to keep changing this stuff and do you think it could lead to a point in time where the spiders crawl my site and lower the value and then don't come back for a while?

.

Nope, no worries there. Change is good.

.

Nope, no worries there. Change is good.

How good?
Should our text on our websites change regularly?
=)
Kk.
.

Well in reYoopered's case, changing a really bad target phrase for a better target phrase is a really good change. He was concerned about somehow annoying the spiders by making changes .... that's not going to happen.
If he was asking about changing a really good phrase and making it worse ... that would be bad change.
Don't change things just for the sake of change. CHange only if you want it to / need it to. For instance, if your policies have not changed, there is no reason to make changes to your policy text just for the sake of showing change to the spider.
If you have a page where you promote restaurants, then that should be updated to reflect new restaurants or removal of ones that have gone out of business or whatever. Some people mistakenly think that Blogs are successful because pages are changing all the time....that's not quite true. They are usually successful because they are being added to (as in new pages) all the time, not because they are being changed.

 

[IronGate]

I know there is still al of of stuff I need to get done with our site but I have played with the page titles as a way to (hopefully) optimize our results on search engines.
I notice the search engines have not been picking up on the changes and that they still return results with the old titles. Any idea how long it takes for these changes to start getting picked up by Google?.

The amount of time depends a lot on how many incoming links you have to your site. The more incoming links, the more often the spiders will stumble into the site and crawl the site to grab the new info. Also the rate of content changes will "train" the spiders a bit. Example: googlebot crawls this site every 20 minutes or so while a B&B site that only changes once a year may only get crawled once a month.
.

Thanks.
What do you think of my page titles? I understand if you are too busy to check em out but I read your site and that's what I came up with from the advice on there. I might have misfired though by not focusing on search phrases and more on key words.
.

Sorry, yes you did focus too much on keywords and not enough on what the majority of people will be searching for.
Examples:

• Your about us page title of "Hosts Meghan and Robert ***'s Bed and Breakfast" is the kind of title you'd use if you want your friends and family to find your place. If you want people that would actually pay to stay with you, you might be better off with something like "Gladstone Michigan Lodging"
• Your Accommodations page title of "Guest rooms include gourmet breakfast and Free Wireless Internet" is a bit too focused. People may be looking for these amenities, but they are unlikely to be searching for them. Since this is your accommodations page, you'd be better off with a title like "Gladstone Michigan Accommodations."

Tuning them to the topic of the page is a win win. Sometimes it is hard to get the topic and the target to line up, but you have to. IT doesn't do any good to have a page title where the text of the page does not in some way represent the title.

• Your reservations page title of 'Michigan Lodging Reservations for Escanaba, and Gladstone, in Delta County" is good, except there is no text on the page that uses those terms. IF the title is not supported by the on-page text then it is actually likely to lower the value of the page for those terms, because it looks like it is trying to be something it is not.

Pick the target phrase,for each page, then align all page elements (titles, headings, body text, meta description, meta keywords, and alt attributes) with that phrase.
.

That's exactly what I thought and why I asked.
It was actually a lot harder than I thought to come up with the titles and I had input from others that are not familiar with SEO (like my parents and wife) and that's why it wasn't aligning.
I'm going to change the titles and include the phrases on the page. Does it hurt to keep changing this stuff and do you think it could lead to a point in time where the spiders crawl my site and lower the value and then don't come back for a while?

.

Nope, no worries there. Change is good.

.

Nope, no worries there. Change is good.

How good?
Should our text on our websites change regularly?
=)
Kk.
.

Well in reYoopered's case, changing a really bad target phrase for a better target phrase is a really good change. He was concerned about somehow annoying the spiders by making changes .... that's not going to happen.
If he was asking about changing a really good phrase and making it worse ... that would be bad change.
Don't change things just for the sake of change. CHange only if you want it to / need it to. For instance, if your policies have not changed, there is no reason to make changes to your policy text just for the sake of showing change to the spider.
If you have a page where you promote restaurants, then that should be updated to reflect new restaurants or removal of ones that have gone out of business or whatever. Some people mistakenly think that Blogs are successful because pages are changing all the time....that's not quite true. They are usually successful because they are being added to (as in new pages) all the time, not because they are being changed.
.

. . . Some people mistakenly think that Blogs are successful because pages are changing all the time....that's not quite true. They are usually successful because they are being added to (as in new pages) all the time, not because they are being changed.

So does a smaller number of posts on a blog page generate more pages, and is therefore better than having a lot of posts on the page? Am I making myself clear?

 

[swirt]

I know there is still al of of stuff I need to get done with our site but I have played with the page titles as a way to (hopefully) optimize our results on search engines.
I notice the search engines have not been picking up on the changes and that they still return results with the old titles. Any idea how long it takes for these changes to start getting picked up by Google?.

The amount of time depends a lot on how many incoming links you have to your site. The more incoming links, the more often the spiders will stumble into the site and crawl the site to grab the new info. Also the rate of content changes will "train" the spiders a bit. Example: googlebot crawls this site every 20 minutes or so while a B&B site that only changes once a year may only get crawled once a month.
.

Thanks.
What do you think of my page titles? I understand if you are too busy to check em out but I read your site and that's what I came up with from the advice on there. I might have misfired though by not focusing on search phrases and more on key words.
.

Sorry, yes you did focus too much on keywords and not enough on what the majority of people will be searching for.
Examples:

• Your about us page title of "Hosts Meghan and Robert ***'s Bed and Breakfast" is the kind of title you'd use if you want your friends and family to find your place. If you want people that would actually pay to stay with you, you might be better off with something like "Gladstone Michigan Lodging"
• Your Accommodations page title of "Guest rooms include gourmet breakfast and Free Wireless Internet" is a bit too focused. People may be looking for these amenities, but they are unlikely to be searching for them. Since this is your accommodations page, you'd be better off with a title like "Gladstone Michigan Accommodations."

Tuning them to the topic of the page is a win win. Sometimes it is hard to get the topic and the target to line up, but you have to. IT doesn't do any good to have a page title where the text of the page does not in some way represent the title.

• Your reservations page title of 'Michigan Lodging Reservations for Escanaba, and Gladstone, in Delta County" is good, except there is no text on the page that uses those terms. IF the title is not supported by the on-page text then it is actually likely to lower the value of the page for those terms, because it looks like it is trying to be something it is not.

Pick the target phrase,for each page, then align all page elements (titles, headings, body text, meta description, meta keywords, and alt attributes) with that phrase.
.

That's exactly what I thought and why I asked.
It was actually a lot harder than I thought to come up with the titles and I had input from others that are not familiar with SEO (like my parents and wife) and that's why it wasn't aligning.
I'm going to change the titles and include the phrases on the page. Does it hurt to keep changing this stuff and do you think it could lead to a point in time where the spiders crawl my site and lower the value and then don't come back for a while?

.

Nope, no worries there. Change is good.

.

Nope, no worries there. Change is good.

How good?
Should our text on our websites change regularly?
=)
Kk.
.

Well in reYoopered's case, changing a really bad target phrase for a better target phrase is a really good change. He was concerned about somehow annoying the spiders by making changes .... that's not going to happen.
If he was asking about changing a really good phrase and making it worse ... that would be bad change.
Don't change things just for the sake of change. CHange only if you want it to / need it to. For instance, if your policies have not changed, there is no reason to make changes to your policy text just for the sake of showing change to the spider.
If you have a page where you promote restaurants, then that should be updated to reflect new restaurants or removal of ones that have gone out of business or whatever. Some people mistakenly think that Blogs are successful because pages are changing all the time....that's not quite true. They are usually successful because they are being added to (as in new pages) all the time, not because they are being changed.
.

. . . Some people mistakenly think that Blogs are successful because pages are changing all the time....that's not quite true. They are usually successful because they are being added to (as in new pages) all the time, not because they are being changed.

So does a smaller number of posts on a blog page generate more pages, and is therefore better than having a lot of posts on the page? Am I making myself clear?
.

Theoretically yes. For search engines, more pages are better. Think of each page like a fishing lure. More pages, more lures in the water. The determination of the length though should really be about what needs to be said (what you want people to read). Don't break up a three paragraph post on the same topic into three 1-paragraph blog pages. That will just annoy your human visitors.
Thought for the day: Search engine spiders don't get paid so they have no money to pay for a room.