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October 18, 2010 at 3:14 am #970330Up::0
Hey Guys,
I am starting a bit of an experiment here.
One of the companies I run is called Exstatic Media, the brand is basically two words ‘Ex + Static’, the meaning being not standing still, with a play on the word ecstatic meaning thrilled!
This brand has been around for about 5 years now so I have no intention of changing it.
The problem is however if you type in extstatic media into the search engines, Google thinks you are meaning to type the word ‘ecstatic’ so goes ahead and searches for those results and can’t find my website!
I have rarely used my website to market my own business (strange I know since I am an online marketer) – as 100% of my business comes from referrals.
The problem is my referrals are now typing my business name into Google and aren’t able to find me.. not so good for an Internet Marketer if no one can find them online!
So this is what I have done, set up a domain to catch the spelling errors – Ecstatic Media
The web page is optimised for SEO for the words Ecstatic Media, it sits visitors at the page for 30secs, then will re-direct them to my real site.
I will have a go at improving this site so it will rank when people misspell my company – wish me luck!
Has anyone else had any similar problems like this?
October 18, 2010 at 5:57 am #1043696Up::0Definitely a bit of a dilemma Brendan, but I think the option chosen to solve your problem is the correct one. The only suggestion I could offer to optimise the re-direct site with the keyword “Ecstatic Media” is to write a few well written articles using that particular keyword as your focal point.
This will most surely give you that extra SE boost to rank your site higher in the SERP’s.
October 18, 2010 at 12:21 pm #1043697Up::0Brendan
that’s why you are a real internet marketer mate, because you think out of the box. Love the approach.
I have done a few experiments with keywords where google corrects you straight away… and I found that if there is enough link building done with the correct keyword in this case: exstatic Media , google will correct this
You can try adding exstatic Media to google places and use authority links (I will suggest using Press releases that get into Google news to “make Google” crawl the anchor with “Exstatic Media” pointing to the proper site.
mmm make sense? (is late… sorry if it sounds SEO-nerdish)
October 18, 2010 at 10:28 pm #1043698Up::0seocourse, post: 53295 wrote:Brendanthat’s why you are a real internet marketer mate, because you think out of the box. Love the approach.
I have done a few experiments with keywords where google corrects you straight away… and I found that if there is enough link building done with the correct keyword in this case: exstatic Media , google will correct this
You can try adding exstatic Media to google places and use authority links (I will suggest using Press releases that get into Google news to “make Google” crawl the anchor with “Exstatic Media” pointing to the proper site.
mmm make sense? (is late… sorry if it sounds SEO-nerdish)
What Gab says is correct.
I’ve also had an experience where google doesn’t believe it’s a real word and does exact what you state, and you can genuinely can “teach” google that it’s a real word – I know because i’ve done it once before – but it does take work.
Basically they need to find the word on enough different websites to start thinking it’s a real result. Gab’s advice about press releases etc to get the “word” out there is best.
HOWEVER, I think your problem may be a bit more deep than that. If you google “exstaticmedia” all one word, it comes up with your website – but with a MISSING meta description, nothing in the title tag spot besides your business name, and no Google cache. And your website is ranking BEHIND your own linkedin profile even for that nonexistant word.
Given your actual website had this stuff right, there must be something major wrong – either there is some bad code which is hiding the content of your page from Google, you have been smacked hard by a Google penalty for doing naughty SEO stuff, or something else.
What this means is your other domain is a good bandaid solution, but isn’t really fixing the actual problem.
If you need any help looking into the reasons for this situation in Google please let me know – but won’t be free as solving this type of thing can take quite a lot of time.
Matt
October 18, 2010 at 11:48 pm #1043699Up::0Thanks for the feedback guys.
Matt, I agree it is a bandaid solution, but its the quickest solution for now whilst I build the reputation of my actual domain and website.
We are working on a new site that has been designed with SEO in mind (just like I do for my clients) which will rank well.
Interesting to note that we could potentially change how Google corrects the spelling, I will work on that one – but as we all know, that takes time!
October 19, 2010 at 2:14 am #1043700Up::0exstatic, post: 53314 wrote:Thanks for the feedback guys.Matt, I agree it is a bandaid solution, but its the quickest solution for now whilst I build the reputation of my actual domain and website.
We are working on a new site that has been designed with SEO in mind (just like I do for my clients) which will rank well.
Interesting to note that we could potentially change how Google corrects the spelling, I will work on that one – but as we all know, that takes time!
Brendan,
Realistically speaking, you would be better off putting all your effort targeting your real keywords and leave the re-direct site for your existing customers and referrals. I think it would be a waste of time and effort targeting a keyword that is not real, when in reality some of your future “bread and butter” will eventually come from your important targeted keywords.
October 19, 2010 at 9:30 am #1043701Up::0exstatic, post: 53314 wrote:Thanks for the feedback guys.Matt, I agree it is a bandaid solution, but its the quickest solution for now whilst I build the reputation of my actual domain and website.
We are working on a new site that has been designed with SEO in mind (just like I do for my clients) which will rank well.
Interesting to note that we could potentially change how Google corrects the spelling, I will work on that one – but as we all know, that takes time!
Hi Brendan,
I think the bandaid solution is ok for the miss – spelling problem, but I do not think it’s a case of a “website not being built for SEO” or needing the domain to have better reputation. Rather, I think there is some deep underlying issue that is causing Google to not read your site properly. I have many times put a site up and had it indexed for it’s own name better than this within only a few days – or even less if it’s a WordPress site.If a site is indexed by Google, which yours is, it will normally show the actual page title in most cases, and always either the meta description as set, the text from your DMOZ listing if you have one, or some other text from the page that Google selects.
Normally if I see a site listed with NO description at all below (as yours is when I manage to find it), it’s usually a 100% flash site or similar without a meta tag, and Google can’t read anything on the site at all. To have a site that’s not 100% flash, actually has text on the page (although not a lot), actually has a site description and reasonable title tag, but to still have Google act as if it can’t read it and have no cache is very very strange.
WAHE, post: 53334 wrote:Brendan,Realistically speaking, you would be better off putting all your effort targeting your real keywords and leave the re-direct site for your existing customers and referrals. I think it would be a waste of time and effort targeting a keyword that is not real, when in reality some of your future “bread and butter” will eventually come from your important targeted keywords.
I agree WAHE that he will get a lot better value from real keywords in the longer term. However most businesses with some sort of reputation and offline presence will find that their own business name ranks as an important keyword – after all, if someone is looking for YOU specifically, it’s important that they can find you, which is why ranking at least in the first few results for your own business name is an important goal.
Matt
October 19, 2010 at 10:39 am #1043702Up::0exstatic, post: 53227 wrote:The problem is however if you type in extstatic media into the search engines, Google thinks you are meaning to type the word ‘ecstatic’ so goes ahead and searches for those results and can’t find my website!
Hi Brendan,Whoa up, troops! I think we may all be way off the mark here.
Google will not try to suggest “Estatic” over “Exstatic” if it has an answer to “Exstatic”. So your first step should be to identify why it can’t see your “Exstatic” site.
I think what you may have is a set up problem with http://www.exstatic.net and http://www.exstaticmedia.com.au.
Google has not indexed any page from http://www.exstatic.net. A very superficial look suggests the reason may be that it has previously indexed http://www.exstaticmedia.com.au.
I can’t tell categorically from the outside but the way the page is perfoming, it looks like http://www.exstaticmedia.com.au may be set up to automatically redirect to http://www.exstatic.net. If this is so, neither Google nor Bing/Yahoo will index automatic redirected pages as they banned this HTML code about 10 years ago because it was a commonly used SE spam technique. (Grey hairs rule in SEO.)
What is the purpose of these two domains? If you don’t really need http://www.exstaticmedia.com.au, why not kill it? That is one simple solution to your problem. If you do need it then make it a permanent redirect to http://www.exstatic.net and that should also solve your problem.
Can you implement one of these solutions and tell us the outcome?
An extra tip: I’d correct the grammar on http://www.ecstaticmedia.com.au/ if you want to position yourself as an Online Marketing Specialist.
PS I’m always looking for strategic alliances if you need a serious Internet marketing and SEO partner.
Regs,
JohnW
October 19, 2010 at 10:57 am #1043703Up::0I think JohnW is correct – as I said there is definitely something more than just simple “domain reputation” or “basic SEO” issues as the problem here, and I think John may have correctly identified one of the main causes. Brendon I think you would be well advised to look into what he has identified.
John as I said you advise is very good, only think I would query is that saying “Google will not try to suggest “Estatic” over “Exstatic” if it has an answer to “Exstatic” I don’t believe to be completely correct, although apologies if I’m getting into semantics here.
Google all the time makes “did you mean” type suggestions, some as an alternative suggestion and some as forced results. If it didn’t do this if it had “an answer” then every miss spelled word on the web would trigger results instead of Google’s spelling suggestion tool.
Rather, I believe it’s a three stage thing based on Google’s estimation of the probability a search term is a miss spelling verses an intentional search term.
A) Word looks miss spelled, and the alternative spelling has very little “authority” or significance – Google just redirects straight to the “correct” spelling.
Word looks miss spelled, but alternative spelling has some significance/authority – Google shows results for the actual search term, but also gives a “did you mean” suggestion.
C) Word and/or domain gains some authority and relevance in Google’s eyes – Google will no longer make alternative suggestions, and will instead presume that’s what people actually meant.Moving through these three stages isn’t required for everyone, but when it is it’s as Gab and I both mentioned – a case of “teaching” Google that this is a real word. Strategies to do this are as varied as SEO strategies themselves.
Matt
October 19, 2010 at 11:39 am #1043704Up::0Hi Matt,
All of what you said about Google, typos and suggested search terms…
No argument. This is another area where Google has made huge changes in the last 12 months.
I agree completely with what you and Gab have said about fixing the problems you addressed.
However, I think the basic problem was misdiagnosis of the problem and the very first step must be to identify the problem before you propose a solution.
Regs,
JohnW
October 19, 2010 at 12:01 pm #1043705Up::0JohnW, post: 53415 wrote:Hi Matt,
However, I think the basic problem was misdiagnosis of the problem and the very first step must be to identify the problem before you propose a solution.John I think you will find I didn’t propose any solution nor provide any diagnosis beyond “it’s definitely not just the common cold you think it is, so you will need to go in for some tests”. I did get into a discussion of the best way to treat the “secondary infection” but that was it.
Turns out I was right, it wasn’t the common cold, and your “tests” look to have found the real problem.
Matt
October 19, 2010 at 9:31 pm #1043706Up::0Hi Matt,
I’m not having a go at you.Inherent problems with forums are that incomplete, misleading or wrong information is often provided. I’m talking generally and not about this specific post.
Folk who are then offering their expertise free can’t be expected to spend much time validating the accuracy and completeness of the information provided.
In this case, I got lucky quickly because I searched Google for “ExstaticMedia” and found exstaticmedia.com.au. If I had searched for “Exstatic Media” I would not have found that there were two domains with their configuration problems.
exstatic, post: 53227 wrote:So this is what I have done, set up a domain to catch the spelling errors – Ecstatic MediaThe web page is optimised for SEO for the words Ecstatic Media, it sits visitors at the page for 30secs, then will re-direct them to my real site.
Brendan,
Don’t implement this automatic redirect on http://www.ecstaticmedia.com.au or you will have the same problem with Google refusing to index it.Regs,
JohnW
October 20, 2010 at 3:00 am #1043707Up::0Thanks Guys, I will take your advice on board, its always great to continue to learn new techniques and strategies.
In terms of the issue with the website not being indexed correctly, we are aware of that and are currently resolving it and hope to have it rectified shortly.
As for the grammar issues – thanks for the review.. things like that can happen late at night!
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