Google Question

Scam · 3 Apr 2006 at 15:59

So i have my project site: http://www.touchlinetactics.co.uk which actually forwards to my webspace @ http://touchlinetactics.2m2l.net

I understand Google gives you a significant bump if highly-ranked pages are linking to your page. Well my personal site comes up top if you search for my full name, so i added a link in there. (It's a portfolio site so it made sense anyway).

But i link to it like this:

Code:

<a href="http://www.touchlinetactics.co.uk" title="Click here to view the Touchline Tactics website">Click here to visit the Touchline Tactics website</a>

Is there a problem in the link pointing to the .co.uk address (which i guess doesn't really 'exist')? :confused:

Would i be better off linking directly to where the page is actually hosted? (touchlinetactics.2m2l.net)? Will it make a difference to Google? :confused:

I of course have all the right metadata on the TT pages.

Apologies if some of what i said is a bit daft or doesnt make sense... i've never had the need to do any SEO before. I just thought it would be nice to get up the Google rankings.

Scam · 3 Apr 2006 at 18:20

robmiller said:
It'll be fine, since you're sending a 302 header that redirects to the .2m21.net site and Google recognises such redirects

Righto. And since Googling for my name brings up my page first.. will that actually help my other site get up there, considering they're not related subject-wise at all. (i.e. is what i'm talking about complete rubbish?

)

Scam · 4 Apr 2006 at 10:42

Hmn that kinda makes sense. But just to clarify, in laymen's terms..

I have these options on the 123-reg CP, and you can see the one i'm using.

Is that the best?

I got a bit confused when reading about Parking in my host's FAQ.

HostRocket said:
Yes. With all HostRocket accounts one can have at least up to 11 domain names associated with their account (one main domain and 10 additional "parked" domains).

Domain parking is free on an ongoing basis (parking additional domains will not increase your monthly cost), the only expense involved is a one time $10.00 charge for domain parking each time you add another domain.

To have a domain parked on your account submit a trouble ticket letting us know what domain you would like us to park on your account. Please include the first 2 and last 4 digits of the credit card you have on file with us (or your account password) for verification.

As with your main domain all parked domains will resolve to your site's index page in your public_html folder. If you wish to have a parked domain resolve to a separate index page within a subdirectory (i.e. you want to host multiple web sites on a single hosting account) this is a separate service which is referred to as "domain pointing".

So considering i have another 'site' @ my main domain, and i host TT at it's subdomain.. parking is no good for me? :confused:

EDIT: Just had a peruse through that site, and found this page about 301, 302 etc... As robmiller said, the HTTP Viewer shows that i'm using a 302.

Hum. Not sure how I'd setup a 301 as the guide Beansprout posted suggests i need two accounts to start with :confused:

Scam · 5 Apr 2006 at 13:58

Hmn its been a few days now and i'm still not getting picked up by Google

Even searching for "touchline tactics" we don't get a look in. There's only 2 pages of results, surely we should get in somewhere! Or have i done something wrong with my meta data? :confused:

Code:

<html>
<head>
<title>Touchline Tactics&trade; - Football management on your desktop</title>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" />
<meta name="author" content="Robert Scammell" />
<meta name="keywords" content="touchline tactics, touchlinetactics, touchline, tactics, touch-line, touch, line, football, soccer, fußball, balompié, le football, gioco del calcio, futbol, management, manager, managerial, multiplayer, online, realtime, real, time, real-time, desktop, based, desktop-based, game, virtual, simulation, student, project, university of lincoln, development, blog, development blog, dev.blog, procrastination, club, team, success, mark sweetlove, mark, sweetlove, robert scammell, robert, scammell" />
<meta name="description" content="Touchline Tactics is a desktop-based, massively multiplayer, online football management simulation. The project is being developed by two final year students at the University of Lincoln." />
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="touchline.css" />
</head>
<body>

Scam · 5 Apr 2006 at 15:35

Meh ok.

Google managed to find my blog very quickly. I guess i'm just a bit eager heh.

Lagz said:
It might speed it up if you register the site with google directly.

Someone on here said that would slow it donw for some reason :confused:

Scam · 5 Apr 2006 at 23:18

That was the idea.

In fact if you do google for 'touchline tactics' its a forum post by me (on some other old forums) comes up top!

Scam · 11 Apr 2006 at 12:39

Mattus said:
Check now. You're top result on Google for touchline tactics and your personal webspace is second.

Yeah i noticed. We come top with quite a few different wordings as well, although never for the actual keywords, like 'online, desktop, football, management..' etc... but i wasnt expecting that anyway! I'm chuffed - need to find a cheeky way of making sure my tutors notice that

Lagz said:
Some random advice for your website:

Stop the "welcome to touchline tactics" reanimating itself everytime you load a page! Its ****ing annoying . Looks very nice apart from that.

****ing annoying? It's not that bad surely?

It was debated whether or not to put the animation on each page, or just on the homepage - i kinda left it because i wanted to make sure the tutors didnt miss it first time. Lame i know but my priority is grades at the moment! I may rethink it, but at the moment the website is done and dusted as far as i'm concerned, i have far more pressing things to think about such as dissertation and the actual program

Scam · 13 Apr 2006 at 15:43

*old thread bump*

So, erm, i was putting off writing my dissertation and was wasting time on the net (as i am now..

), and i noticed that our site doesn't appear on Google at all anymore. All the normal results are there, but minus us at the top. What the hell?

I havent done anything to the site, bar adding a blog entry! What's happened

Scam · 15 Apr 2006 at 01:05

Heh ok ok

Anyway, apologies for going on but this is starting to intrigue me. We seem to have re-appeared on Google, but the 'about' page comes up top. I'd rather the homepage comes up instead. Isn't there some way of telling search engines which page is my index/homepage? :confused: