Web Site Problems

[JJ]

After months and months of working on my web and trying to get ranked in google, it appears that my placements in the google search engines have been hijacked.
It seems that my placements in google are being over written by a directory company who then have their url address listed instead of mine.
I have spent endless hours working on my site and trying to get the ratings up, now it seems all my hard work has been for nothing, this company is somehow, taking away my web address and using their's on each of my page listings in google
I feel like giving up as I have read there is nothing I can do to reverse what is happening ......see here http://clsc.net/research/google-302-page-hijack.htm

It seems to have been an on going problem with no real results. See here
http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/archive/index.php/

Has anyone else had a similar problem or any theories as to what I can do?

 

[shready]

In what way?

I searched for 'lighting services wirral' and your website came out second, under Lomax Electrical.

 

[JJ]

In what way?

I searched for 'lighting services wirral' and your website came out second, under Lomax Electrical.

Hi shready thanks for your reply - Yes we will come out if you type in a specific thing such as lighting wirral, however I have a meta tag "Picture Lights" for months, my web was listed on page 3 of the organic google listings.

This week I find my advert
Picture Lights
Universal Lighting provide a wide range of home lighting products including decorative, chandeliers, semi flush, spots and recess lighting, picture li… ...

THEN DISPLAYS ANOTHER URL. This until last week diplayed my web site URL.
I have never ever registered with this company, yet all of my companies details are now in their directory - along with all my competitors
The only way to delete my company details is to registar with them!

The same has happened with another listing - But this time they have removed any link to my site.

I really don't understand how this is being allowed to happen?

 

[Wapping]

I'm not sure what I'm looking for but:

(a) I got the same result as Shready, second.

(b) A different one for 'lights wirral'... (you vanish entirely, I think, being usurped by the Harbour Lights cafe)

(c) Another result for 'lighting wirral'....when you drop to third

If I was looking for lights, which I guess I would be, I am not sure I would think of putting the words 'Lighting services' in, automatically.

 

[judge]

What website are we talking about The URL of the site in question will avoid the chance of me talking about the wrong one.

 

[JJ]

I'm not sure what I'm looking for but:

(a) I got the same result as Shready, second.

(b) A different one for 'lights wirral'... (you vanish entirely, I think, being usurped by the Harbour Lights cafe)

(c) Another result for 'lighting wirral'....when you drop to third

If I was looking for lights, which I guess I would be, I am not sure I would think of putting the words 'Lighting services' in, automatically.

Hi Wapping, thank you for all that
I probably haven't explained it properly.

After months and months of working on the website and finally getting ranked in google, it appears that the placements in the google search engines have been hijacked.

The placements in google are being over written by a directory company who then have their url address listed instead of Universal lighting.
This company is somehow, taking away the web address and using their's on each of the page listings in google.

......see here http://clsc.net/research/google-302-page-hijack.htm

It seems to have been an on going problem with no real results. See here
http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/archive/index.php/

It would appear that they run something called a 302 script? This in essence redirects all searches linked to ULS to a company called Hotfrog that lists the competition.

 

[JJ]

What website are we talking about The URL of the site in question will avoid the chance of me talking about the wrong one.

Hi Judge,

The website is called hotfroguk.co.uk

Have you heard of it?

 

[judge]

Hi Judge,

The website is called hotfroguk.co.uk

Have you heard of it?

Its your website I'm having trouble working out the URL for

 

[JJ]

Its your website I'm having trouble working out the URL for

it's................ www.ulsltd.com

 

[judge]

it's................ www.ulsltd.com

I figured it was that one but before I commented I wanted confirmation.

Cos when I read this:

After months and months of working on my web and trying to get ranked in google,

and this:

I have spent endless hours working on my site and trying to get the ratings up,

I was somewhat surprised to find this:

{meta name="keywords" content="universal lighting home garden commercial light lights illuminate bulb illuminate illumination decorative special liverpool birkenhead merseyside wirral england north west uk" /}

{meta name="description" content="Universal Lighting provide a wide range of lighting products for the home, garden and energy efficient lighting systems" /}

Now I'm well up for dissing Google et al in their methods but you haven't exactly given them much to be going on have you?

Now I claim no SEO (search engine optimisation) brilliance because it is black art, snake oil and VooDoo shite all round in to one, that said a well formed set of META TAGS is the very least you should do and yours do not make for anything like a well formed set of META TAGS.

In addition META TAGS are one very small part of the key to success with search engines and they don't all look for the same indicators for success. If we take Google as a for instance, Google wants just 2 things; to own the world's data and to make money. In achieving their aims they expect a decent amount of effort, or money or both for you to gain acceptance in their world.

Yours is a web shop, and like a brochure site is fairly low in their scheme of things. Google want your site to already be popular before they get interested, it wants hits, unique hits, it wants others to reference your site and in fact wants your site to become a reference site for whatever it is you are. So Universal Lighting needs to the place where people naturally go for lighting advice, it wants people to natually associate your site with the thing you do.

And here's the rub there is little engineering you can do to achieve that if it is not your common goal - seems to me Universal Lighting as a company want to be able to sell online to both their existing client base but also extend to where they are unknown. No amount of 'coding' the site will achieve this in isolation.

You need to drive traffic to your site and for this more traditional methods of marketing are needed for this - yes your site is vulnerable to high jack and the unscrupulous methods of others but to be honest you allow it to happen by not fully understanding how to code to give your site the best chance of success.

I've just had a look at how you might have arrived at your META TAGS such as they are and see they are as ill-formed as your web developer's own site at http://www.westwindmoves.com/

p.s. Mr Moderator, this thread might get more directed help if it was in Computers not BC&B

 

[JJ]

I figured it was that one but before I commented I wanted confirmation.

Cos when I read this:



and this:



I was somewhat surprised to find this:



Now I'm well up for dissing Google et al in their methods but you haven't exactly given them much to be going on have you?

Now I claim no SEO (search engine optimisation) brilliance because it is black art, snake oil and VooDoo shite all round in to one, that said a well formed set of META TAGS is the very least you should do and yours do not make for anything like a well formed set of META TAGS.

In addition META TAGS are one very small part of the key to success with search engines and they don't all look for the same indicators for success. If we take Google as a for instance, Google wants just 2 things; to own the world's data and to make money. In achieving their aims they expect a decent amount of effort, or money or both for you to gain acceptance in their world.

Yours is a web shop, and like a brochure site is fairly low in their scheme of things. Google want your site to already be popular before they get interested, it wants hits, unique hits, it wants others to reference your site and in fact wants your site to become a reference site for whatever it is you are. So Universal Lighting needs to the place where people naturally go for lighting advice, it wants people to natually associate your site with the thing you do.

And here's the rub there is little engineering you can do to achieve that if it is not your common goal - seems to me Universal Lighting as a company want to be able to sell online to both their existing client base but also extend to where they are unknown. No amount of 'coding' the site will achieve this in isolation.

You need to drive traffic to your site and for this more traditional methods of marketing are needed for this - yes your site is vulnerable to high jack and the unscrupulous methods of others but to be honest you allow it to happen by not fully understanding how to code to give your site the best chance of success.

I've just had a look at how you might have arrived at your META TAGS such as they are and see they are as ill-formed as your web developer's own site at http://www.westwindmoves.com/

p.s. Mr Moderator, this thread might get more directed help if it was in Computers not BC&B

Judge, many thanks for all this............

You are right I do not seem to understand much of meta tags etc.
All I have been doing is loading my back office for the web site and spending hour upon hour working on it.
I am a small business and have been using the advice from the company who developed my site.
I am sorry to say I do not understand very much about SEO. Are you saying my site is vunerable to such and if so how do I go about changing it?
I am sorry to be a pain, but I honestly do not know what to do over this.

 

[judge]

Judge, many thanks for all this............

You are right I do not seem to understand much of meta tags etc.
All I have been doing is loading my back office for the web site and spending hour upon hour working on it.
I am a small business and have been using the advice from the company who developed my site.
I am sorry to say I do not understand very much about SEO. Are you saying my site is vunerable to such and if so how do I go about changing it?
I am sorry to be a pain, but I honestly do not know what to do over this.

Nowt much wrong with the shop although I haven't explored much of it and yes it is clear you don't seem to have derived much help from your developer, or that they place much importance on SEO as you do (their own site suggests not).

You can start by giving them a better fuller set of META TAGS to place on your site.

You can immerse yourself in SEO stuff and learn it for yourself by using useful web resources, this site is a good starter for 10.

But I think in fairness you have just got to be more realistic about search engine success for your site and look at short-cutting your way to 'success' by tipping the ferry-man

 

[Clive]

The placements in google are being over written by a directory company who then have their url address listed instead of Universal lighting.
This company is somehow, taking away the web address and using their's on each of the page listings in google.

It would appear that they run something called a 302 script? This in essence redirects all searches linked to ULS to a company called Hotfrog that lists the competition.

I don't think it is a 302 as the search result listed on Google shows the correct Hotfroguk URL

Hotfroguk is a directory service - if you look at the page contents at http://www.hotfroguk.co.uk/Products/picture-lights
you'll see you have an entry of

Universal Lighting provide a wide range of home lighting products including decorative, chandeliers, semi flush, spots and recess lighting, picture li…

This looks like an old set of your META Description values which are currently

Universal Lighting provide a wide range of lighting products for the home, garden and energy efficient lighting systems

Compare that to the entry above yours (Surrey Lighting) against the meta description at http://www.surreylighting.co.uk/

Hotfroguk is simply gathering (mainly automatically - look at the sponsored links under Products & Services like this one … - different word case etc) Meta tags from various places and working out addresses etc.

They say they are providing a "directory/search service" - as you say - they really only want money to remove your entry

Not much you can do about it, other than not rely on Meta tags

 

[Scuba-Sparky]

Hello Chap

Had a quick look at your site and noted it, as im a Sparky May well contact you with a job coming up soon with some intresting requirements!

Scuba

 

[JJ]

I don't think it is a 302 as the search result listed on Google shows the correct Hotfroguk URL

Hotfroguk is a directory service - if you look at the page contents at http://www.hotfroguk.co.uk/Products/picture-lights
you'll see you have an entry of

Universal Lighting provide a wide range of home lighting products including decorative, chandeliers, semi flush, spots and recess lighting, picture li…

This looks like an old set of your META Description values which are currently

Universal Lighting provide a wide range of lighting products for the home, garden and energy efficient lighting systems

Compare that to the entry above yours (Surrey Lighting) against the meta description at http://www.surreylighting.co.uk/

Hotfroguk is simply gathering (mainly automatically - look at the sponsored links under Products & Services like this one … - different word case etc) Meta tags from various places and working out addresses etc.

They say they are providing a "directory/search service" - as you say - they really only want money to remove your entry

Not much you can do about it, other than not rely on Meta tags

Thanks for all that Clive, I really do appreciate all the help, thank you all very much

 

[JJ]

Hello Chap

Had a quick look at your site and noted it, as im a Sparky May well contact you with a job coming up soon with some intresting requirements!

Scuba

That's great Scuba give me a call anytime................. These interesting requirements sound VERY INTERESTING PM or give me a bell

 

[Redboots]

Hi JJ,

one other thing, your domain name sucks. Means nothing to anyone. Can you not come up with something more appropriate? More related to your business.

John