Download Speed vs Site Performance

I check Google's data on the Engineering Site all the time, again today I rechecked the Site Performance. At least for the last few weeks the time it takes to down-load a page has decreased [always a good thing]. The attached graphic shows the amount of time it takes Google to down-load pages on the site. The numbers don't represent a single page but the average of some number of pages Googlebot tried to read. I don't really think the data is that accurate, because it never takes 4 seconds to download a page, but I read the data because that's what Google is looking at to determine site performance.

There is no way to tell why my site is coming in faster. The server could be working faster, Google pulled fewer pages or Google pulled small pages; who knows? Well I can check and see how many pages Google crawled per day and it's about the same between now and mid June. Google Crawl Stats indicate an average of 673 pages per day over the last few months.

However; I've been working on making the site faster for months, but not really getting anything to work. The basic problem is that any time I update a page and make the HTML text smaller [less code], I add more data making the page larger. So I may make the html code more efficient [decreasing download times], but I add more human readable text increasing the download time.

The current data [below] indicates the average time to download pages on the site takes 2.6 seconds. This is only important because Google rates site by download speed, so it's Search Engine Optimization [SEO].

Related Blog Posts;
Page Download Times [7-15-2010] 3.1 seconds to download
Speed Performance Overview [6-16-2010] 2.8 seconds to download
Web Site Performance [4-22-2010] 3.7 seconds to download
Google now ranks pages by speed [4-14-2010] No speed data.
Website Speed Performance [4-3-2010] 3.7 seconds to load.

Google Caffeine and Indexing

So Google came out with a new indexing system which updates the Google index much faster than in previous years. The new indexing system is called Caffeine [Google Caffeine], and allows for a change in its index each night.

It was common knowledge that once every thirty days Goggle would shuffle it's indexed pages, so if you were number 2 in the search engine position [index] one month that same page would change position the next month. Some times the position would get a higher position, and sometime the index change would leave the page in a lower position.

However at the same time many of the new pages I generated would show up in the index the next day because I would blog about the new page address in the New Engineering Pages Blog. Google operates these blogs [blogspot] so they read or spider them all the time. Any new page mentioned in blogger gets noticed by Google much faster before it reads any external web site [I assume]. Before I started blogging I would wait 2 to 4 weeks before a page would get indexed, but after I started blogging any new page would get picked up within several hours.

So for Search Engine Optimization [SEO], blog about any new page you generate because it gets picked up much faster that waiting for the spider [Googlebot] to find it, and much faster than having to generate a new site map for each new page addition.

So what is Caffeine? Well it's Google changing your search engine position ever day instead of every month. However; because your page position might change ever day as it was displaced by one of my new pages, I'm not really sure I see the difference. However Google does indicate a recent drop in the number of my page that are being displayed in the search engine listing, or really the number of pages that are being clicked on.

So this graph depicts the the number of times my page is shown in the search engine results [blue] and the number of times somebody clicks on one of my pages [yellow] in the search results. A drop in click-through rate [yellow] in the last few days should indicate that although my pages are still showing up in the search results, they now appear lower down in the results ~ maybe page 2 of the results instead of page 1.
But at the same time Google Analytics reports that there has been no drop in visits, and I trust the Analytics report more than I trust the report from Google webmaster tools [graphic above].

If I run the above report for the term Can Bus I see no real reduction in the click through-rate.
While the graph shows all search queries [all search terms] that relate to my website.

Search Key Word vs. Search Key Phrase

For a number of years now I've noticed that many of my pages do not do well in a Google search when a one word phrase is used. I've never been able to figure out why my pages do better with two or more key words rather than one key word, but I guess I can't show up first for every key word.

So one example is the search term VME, which would be a one-keyword search. The VME page shows up in the ninth position on the first page. When the phrase is changed to VME Bus, the page shows up in the forth position [same for VMEbus]. When I add another key phrase, VME Bus Pinout, the page shows up as the first listing on the first page. First listing for the key-words VME Backplane, and VME Chassis also. Hmm, looks like VME Connector places first too, in both a text and image search.

I'm using the VME Bus as an example, but I could have used any computer bus because the same thing happens. I just don't under stand how Google determines what page should show up first when only one key-word is used.

Yes I know the rules, those other pages must be using the key terms more often at the beginning of their article. I' don't know, my pages do show up but I would rather have them show up higher for a few one word searches. I guess I need to somehow optimize the VME interface page up that it shows better in a Google search, maybe rewrite some of the text.

Page De-listed and not found

I was working on updating a page the other day and I did a Site Search for it, so I could see how it displayed in the Web Browser. Well guess what, the page did not come up in the Google Search bar I have on the site. Two other pages that pointed to it showed up, but not the page it-self.
The page in question shows a Derating Curve for a 2N3762 Transistor, UA Package. However the two pages that showed up in the listing were for a Temperature Derating Curve for 2N3765 Transistor and a list of PNP Transistor Derating Curves. So the assumption is that the page relating to the 2N3762 PNP Transistor was delisted. Now I noticed that there is another related page; the main 2N3762 Transistor Design page and the 2N3762 Transistor in a U4 package which also should have showed up in the search results.

Now if I put a Google Site Search on my Engineering web site, I would expect Google to search my site ~ that's the point of the search bar. What Google does on their own site is up to Google, but my pages should come up on my site.

I was also working on another page [IRIG PCM Waveforms] and I checked Google Analytics stats for that page and only a few page views showed up. So I again did a Google site search and that page does not show as listed either.

These pages exist on the site, but many people may not navigate to the correct page to see the data, they may just use the search engine. I assume they click away when the correct page does not show up in the search.

Attached picture; A-10 Thunderbolt II In-flight, US Air force [USAF].

Custom Search Bar

I started to add a new Google search bar to the web site. The new version of the search bar replaces the current one already used on the site. I'm not really sure when Google came out with the new code. I'm also not real keen with the reduction in options, but that's another story.

The code for the search bar is only 430 characters, while the current version used contained 1,910 characters. That's a reduction of 1,480 characters per html page [depending on the search bar used]. So a character is one byte of text, or 8 bits of data. Eight bits x 1,480 bytes = 11,840 bits per page ~ that's the size of a pic file.
Say 10,000 page views a day x 11,000 bits, that's 110M Bytes per day.

Now I've only started to change the search bar on a few pages so far, so I'll be changing the code the rest of the year. The pages with the search bar at the top center of the page keep the same location. While the Dictionary style pages with a side bar will have their search bar moved up to the top of the side bar. Although you should keep the search bar in the same place for all your pages so people can't find it. These pages are having it moved to the top, just to the right.

I may be saving 110MB of bandwidth/day, but the pages are getting larger as the site grows. So in reality I will not see any reduction in bandwidth, maybe just keeping the bandwidth around the 13G Byte number. Take note of the last posting to see the increase in bandwidth over the last month. Remember it's nice to load up a page with graphics or what ever but keep your visitors in mind and keep the page-loading time down. Otherwise you my have people clicking away because the page takes to long to load.

Today I'll add the new search bar to the few dozen pages that get down-loaded the most, that way I'll see an immediate reduction in bandwidth. The other pages can wait until they need some other up-date.
Graphic; US Coast Guard HH-65C helicopters.

Google Sites [Nofollow]

Although I do like Google Sites I did want to mention one particular issue with using the free service, which some people may find important. But first a few good things about Google Sites.

First off Google Sites is free to use, there are no fees or costs involved with the service.
Second, it's easy to generate web pages ~ like this one [ http://sites.google.com/site/interfacebus/Home ].
I think they call them web pages, unlike a web site. I assume because you can only integrate the web pages together in a particular way. Of course you can upload and integrate pic files and text.
Finally you can use your Adsense code, or run Google Ads.

So what is the problem with Google Sites; well Google does not follow the links on the site. Every link you add to your web pages gets a HTML tag called no-follow [ rel=nofollow ]. The nofollow tag tells every search engine not to follow your link and in Google's case not to give the page it points to any Page Rank.

You can use the site to generate and run a web page, but you can not use the site to promote another web site [with a search engine]. So you can start a web page there and point your visitors to another web site, but you can't point any search engine to a different site because the links don't work.

Last year I would have advised someone just starting out to begin with Google Sites, just to get off the ground and get a Page Rank. Now because you can't pass a Page Rank, I would advice people to bit the bullet and buy a web address and rent server time.  It's just pointless to spend time working a web page if it doesn't help with Page Rank for any other web page generated sometime later. The best example; you want web presence now and six months later you come up with a business name. When you do buy that web address [your-site.com] no one points to it and it has a zero page rank [so you start from scratch again].

Now when Google Knol started they also used the nofollow tag for the first three months. However because of so many complaints they dropped it several months in. So now links from any Google Knol you write do work with search engines. Example Knol I started on Component Derating.

Graphic; Panel Mount LED, Red color.

URL Appraisal Results for interfacebus.com

I was just out checking on a unrelated web site on the internet, just to see what was up with it. One of the search results was from a page that does URI appraisals, or internet name value. I just had to plug in my name, the other site showed a value of $7,000.

Their appraisal indicated a Site Worth of $51,049.40 [calculated to the penny?]
Domain Created Date: 2000-10-04
Domain Age: 9 Years, 64 Days
Google PageRank: 5
Overall Site Ranking: 122,669
Unique Monthly Visitor Estimate: 13,923
Alexa Ranking: 161,376
Google Inlinks: 0 [looks like it returned zero results]
Google Pages: 1,850
Yahoo Inlinks: 9,992
Yahoo Pages: 2,180
Marketability; 
.... Top Level Domain: GREAT 
.... Undesirable Characters: GREAT (0 Total) 
.... Overall Length: OK (12 Length)

The Alexa data looked lower then normal [lower is better] so I went out and checked them too. The pic file is Daily Reach; the lower the number the better. The other number provided by Alexa is Traffic Rank, also the lower the better. Traffic Rank was the number given above by the other site.
7 Day 133,441 [-19,546]
1 Month 133,698 [-61,749]
3 Month 159,448 [-34,218]
Oh that appraisal value is only for the web name, not the money it could earn.

How to get a high Search Engine Postion

Search Engine Position [SEP] is the term used to describe where in a search engine listing a web address [web site] shows up. A good SEP would be ending up on the first page of results returned from a search. Of course showing up in position number one would be the best out-come.

A lot of web sites pay companies called SEO's [for Search Engine Optimization] to help the ranks or position in the search engines. But many times SEO's are employed by people that don't really under stand how search engines work, course their trying to run a business and might not have time to investigate the issue.

Well in most cases I think about those issues while generating a new page, and I try to account for many of the issues. However because page optimization [SEO tactics] doesn't help the viewer I don't always perform all the optimizations possible. As time goes on additional page optimizing is added, maybe the next time the page gets up-dated.

So any way I added a new page yesterday covering the Single Wire Debug Bus, and I linked to it from one of the Interface buses listing pages.  I also blogged about the new page in the new engineering pages blog.

I was out in Google searching for data on the Single Wire Debug Bus because I never really started writing the page yet. Guess what, using the search terms "Single Wire Debug" that new page I generated yesterday shows up on the first page of the results and is the 6th listing on the page [out off 136,000 pages]... That's pretty good.

Graphic; NASA rocket maximum payload comparison.

Yearly High in Unique Visitors

I blogged on Friday about the number of hits or visits coming in because I noticed an increase during a month that normally shows an average amount of visits. The previous day I noted that the incoming visits had amounted to the second largest number of visitors during the year. [Seasonal Fluctuations of Web Visits]

Well yesterday just became the day that received the largest amount of visitors for the entire year. Yesterday ended up with just a tad over 9,000 visitors for the day, or maybe about a hundred over the previous high. Now it's common to see days producing 8,800 visitors, and even more common to see visits in the 8,500 range, but the important point to note here is that the count went over 9,000.

I can't tell why the visitors are increasing; how ever there are a few reasons that come to mind. Perhaps some new page additions just got spidered [found by the search engine], maybe some of the pages added over the last month or so just made it into the Search Engine Pages [SEPs], or maybe some of the page enhancements made over the last month are bringing in new visitors. But really there is just no way to tell why I'm seeing an increase.

Remember it takes time for a search engine to find any changes to your web site. Normally I assume about 15 days before Google finds or reads one of my pages. Another 30 days before a page really starts to show up in the search results [if at all], and another 3 months before that new page receives a Page Rank [if it ever gets a page rank]. However because I post new pages additions out to Blogger [New Engineering Additions], Google really sees the new page address the same day, but I'll bet it does not go out and read it then. Of course Google re-orders their listing every month so maybe I just show up higher in the results now, and has zero to do with any updates....

Graphic; Monthly History AWSTATS: 1/1/09 to 10/13/09

Web Visits and Seasonal Fluctuations

Figured I would produce a different chart then I normally would. Just to show a different view point.

The number of visits coming in this week are some of the highest of the year, but not the highest because a day in March produced the most visitors [so far].

Any way it just doesn't seem like the incoming hits were matching prior trends, so I generated this graph to actually show the high and low trends by month. Yes I know the trend line is flat for the last three years, I'm working on it.

So the best month of the year is in March or sometimes January is a good month. The worst months are at the end of the year in December or mid year around June/July. It just seems odd that if this months hits continue at their present rate that October could be the month with the most visitors this year. Of course I only have a week of data this month, but I looked back over this year and did not find visits per day this high. In fact last month was the highest number of hits in September in the last three years..... There are already a number of older posts that indicate why the visits are flat, so just scroll down the page with the next page link being on the right side.

Data Source; AWSTATS off my server [apposed to Google Analytic data which I also post]. FYI; Google's count would be 3% low because that percentage of visitors do not run Java Script which their counter requires.

SEO Advice; I noticed a few months ago that Google was posting the last revision date of pages as they were displayed in their SEPs. So now regardless of the update I make to a page I rev the text that indicates when the last time the page was updated. In previous up-dates I would only change the date for a major reversion, certainly not for some html change that no one could even see.

Comparing Visits from Different Years

One of the reports from Google Analytics is an overview of visitors from any two dates that are of interest. You can also compare any two sets of date ranges. In this case the graphic to the left compares 1-1-08 to 7-22-08 vs. 1-1-09 to 7-22-09. The graph points [dots] are per week, but you can show data per day or per month. Click the image for a larger view of the data.

Notice that the graph lines appear almost identical. However the data indicates there has been a -0.56% increase visitors from this year to last, or around a decrease of 7000 visitors. That's less than one day worth of visitors, so maybe the site went down a few hours more this year than last.

Not much to worry about until I scroll down the report and review the data on a per page basis. That's when the data starts to look troubling. Here is a sampling of a few of the pages that are in decline, ignoring the few pages that showed an increase in visits.

CANbus -4.24% in visitors.
USB Interface -5.21% in visitors.
interfacebus.com [home page] -15.68% in visitors.
PCIexpress Interface -37.28% in visitors.
RS422 Interface -5.16% in visitors.
SerialATA Interface -7.19% in visitors.

Now these are not buses that are in decline, so there is no reason for these pages to see any decrease. Unlike the RS232 bus that is being left off newer computers; that page also showed a -12.25% decline, but I can deal with that.

So what is the deal with a graph that shows no real decrease, but many pages that seem to be in decline. Well when you check the blog listing new engineering pages, you'll see that over a hundred new pages have been added over the same time frame. So the new pages are leveling out this year even as a number of pages are seeing a reduced number of hits.

Hmm, I happen to be looking for the VME64x pin out today, my page came up first in a Google search but I decided to select the next guys page. Sure enough there's my text, plus a link back to me ~ stay off my site. Guess it's time to start looking at some of these other pages to see what's finding its way onto other websites.

Most of these guys running hardware or engineering sites aren't engineers at all, you can kind of tell by what they copy.

The point here is always spend some time searching the Internet looking for your work. I found a guy a few years back who had copied my PCIe page [and a dozen others], but I had just written the page. It had taken several hours to generate the different pin out tables in HTML, and he grabbed them in a matter of minutes.... Better stop now or I'll start naming names. Oh had two typo's I found weeks later, to bad he missed garbing the up-dates.

SEO Tactics and Visits from Image Searches

One sure way of getting new site visitor is from image searches. Just like receiving incoming visitors from a text based search, images can bring in new visitors. Plus images go along way to adding support to the text it's related to on the page.

The attached graphic shows weekly page visits from people using an image search, via a search engine. The data is from Google Analytics; Traffic Sources, Referring Sites, Filter 'image'.

So over the last three years there have been 43,437 visits to interfacebus.com via an image search. Now 43,000 site visits is not a very big number, and it's less than what the site gets in a single week.
More importantly the data indicates that 86.37% of the incoming hits were from new visitors. So 37,000 new people found my site who may not have otherwise ever found it, that's called free advertising.
Now the Bounce rate was only 67.77%, so 33% of the visitors jumped to more than one page on the site. I can't tell how many people book-marked the address or came back again, but it must be some percentage.

New pictures are being added to the site all the time. All images also always come with an html alt tag and title tag to help the search engine determine what the picture relates to. The picture file name is always descriptive, and most site graphics have a visible caption.

In fact the section on Definition of Resistor Terms was up-dated over the weekend with a few more graphics. At the same time any missing pic captions were added.

How to Increase Site Visits:
Just keep adding graphics to gain more visitors, but not so many that they slow down loading in the page. Keep in mind that there is a time lag between when a pic file is added and when the search engine finds it.

This blog brings in 100 visits a month, 61% new visits at a 61% Bounce Rate.

SEO: Search Engine Optimization

Related post from last year; SEO and Hits from Image Referrals
Graphic; Weekly hits from image searches.

I Need More Visitors

Visitors to interfacebus.com have been flat for years. I add new pages all the time, and of course I up-date and enhance existing pages at an even faster rate [Engineering Page Additions]. What ever I do to the web site, it seems to make no difference.

Of course some of the issues that effect the website are just out of my control. A third of the website is geared toward Computer Buses. Well as time moves on more and more of those PC Buses go obsolete. For example the PCI Express bus replaced both the PCI Bus and the AGP Bus, resulting in 5 pages replacing 8 pages [when pinout tables are counted].

Many new pages added are small in size and it takes time to work them while also doing routine maintenance to the website.

----- RoHS Definition [Added in 2006, no Page Rank, and only viewed 347 times]

Sometimes a page might seem like a good idea, but I never get around to working that particular issue.

----- PON Acronyms [Added in 2007, Page Rank 2, only viewed 263 times]

Maybe I start a page because I generate a new graphic and think it will support another page.

----- Compliant Pin Description [Added in 2008, Page Rank 2, only viewed 230 times]

Adding new pages does not guarantee visitors, as they still have to compete with preexisting pages on the web.

----- Manufacturers of Waveguide Gaskets [Added in 2009, no Page Rank, only viewed 71 times]

New pages also need three months before they receive a page rank from Google, if they ever get one at all. A Page Rank helps the page show up on page one of the search results.

Of course I have no control how my pages show up in the search results. The rise and fall based on an algorithm running on some computer. This page lost 50% of its visits in mid 2008 and stayed there.

----- Wire Insulation Color Codes [Added pre 2006, Page Rank 2]

FYI

The attached graphic is from Google Trends showing the Internet search history for the term AGP. Click the graphic for a larger image. The AGP interface [Accelerated Graphics Port] is the obsolete PC motherboard video bus which was replaced by the PCI Express [PCIe] bus.

Adding Pages to Increase Visits

I keep track of new page additions to the web site via another blog. So far this year about 190 new pages have been added to interfacebus.com, a few other new additions to the other web sites. However many of the new pages are small in size which makes it hard to compete with similar pages with more content on the internet. Of course even if the new pages do not show well in the search engine rankings [SERPS] they still serve to support the web site.

What Page Rank a page receives is determined by the search engines, as is when a page receives a Page Rank. Page Rank and Search Engine position are both determined by the search engines, with Google bringing in the vast majority of incoming visitors.

Of course some pages just might not do well because they have little or no content;
Manufacturers of Solderless Terminals,
Manufacturers of Water Alarm Units,
Synchro definition,
Mazda Engine Control System, [New page]
Residual Current Device definition,
Manufacturers of Thermal Adhesive Compounds, [No page linking in]
Industrial Mezzanine Board Formats, [No page linking in]
Industrial Tool Manufacturers,

So those are a few of the pages that have had the fewest visits this year. In two cases it appears like there were no other pages that pointed to them, which would explain why the page received no hits.

It's a bit hard to find the low performing pages because the list is full of misspelled page addresses, which return a 404 page not found code. The list of 'Top' Content' is generated by Google Analytics and contains 18,718 line items for the year. However I only checked the top 2,500 as all the rest of the list is just misspelled page addresses. The Mazda page is 1,670 line items from the top of the list [surrounded by misspelled web addresses].

Adding new pages does not guaranty more traffic

Cuil Search Engine

I tried out the new search engine that was released today. A few ex-employees from Google came up with cuil, which seems to still need a little work.

Like we need another search engine any way. The attached graphic is a partial list of visits from robots and spiders for the month of July. Note the server bandwidth the search robots take up. Odd that the Cuil robot did not show up in the list this month.

www.interfacebus.com does show up in the list, but does that mean that the last time the site was spidered was a month ago? And a search for interfacebus only produces a link on the 6th page.

I saw a number of compliants about their search results, and I agree with all of them.
1. The site was off-line or did not respond.
2. The graphics shown with the results do not relate to the listing
--- My site came in with a GM logo, I don't display anyones Trade Marked Logo.
3. Duplicate site listing on the same page, multi-page links from the same site
--- Like the old Yahoo search results, with page after page of the same site in the results.
4. Results returned link farms, like key word stuffing working again.

Page Rank & Listing of Manufacturers

One of the sections of the site is a listing of Manufacturers in alphabetic order, instead of by topic. The alphabetic listing of Manufacturers spans 94 pages. The section received 1,255 pageviews in the last 30 days, and 8,205 page views this year. The alphabetic index page, which also happens to be letter 'A' receives most of the hits, and the rest are spread over the alphabet.

The section help people find companies when they might not be sure of the name, and it indicates who may have purchased the company if it changed hands. It's a lot of work keeping all the links active and valid, but it does seem to serve a purpose.

Any way, several months ago I broke up many of the pages to make them smaller, reducing the number of links per page. The new pages started with a zero page rank, which is normal, but they still have not recovered. Worse still, I checked one page today and the content didn't even show up during a search ~ meaning the page was not even indexed by Google.

Pages with a zero page rank:
Engineering Manufacturers starting with 'Amd'. html code updated, links checked ~ no issues..
Engineering Manufacturers starting with 'Asq'. links checked ~ no issues..
Engineering Manufacturers starting with 'Be'. html code updated, links checked ~ no issues..
Engineering Manufacturers starting with 'Bl'. links checked ~ no issues..
Engineering Manufacturers starting with 'Br'. links checked ~ no issues..
Engineering Manufacturers starting with 'Cm'. links checked ~ no issues..
Engineering Manufacturers starting with 'Con'. html code updated, links checked ~ no issues..
Engineering Manufacturers starting with 'Cp'. links checked ~ no issues..
Engineering Manufacturers starting with 'Dem'. links checked ~ no issues..
Engineering Manufacturers starting with 'Ec'. html code updated,links checked ~ no issues..
Engineering Manufacturers starting with 'El'. links checked ~ no issues..
Engineering Manufacturers starting with 'Em'. links checked ~ no issues..
Engineering Manufacturers starting with 'Fm'. links checked ~ no issues..
Engineering Manufacturers starting with 'G'. html code updated, links checked ~ no issues..
Engineering Manufacturers starting with 'Gen'. links checked ~ no issues..
Engineering Manufacturers starting with 'Gl'. links checked ~ no issues..
Engineering Manufacturers starting with 'Go'.
Engineering Manufacturers starting with 'Hb'. html code updated, links checked ~ no issues..
Engineering Manufacturers starting with 'Hj'.
Engineering Manufacturers starting with 'Il'.
Engineering Manufacturers starting with 'In'.
Engineering Manufacturers starting with 'Int'.
Engineering Manufacturers starting with 'Intel'.
Engineering Manufacturers starting with 'Jd'.
Engineering Manufacturers starting with 'Ke'. html code updated, links checked ~ no issues..
Engineering Manufacturers starting with 'Ki'.
Engineering Manufacturers starting with 'L'. html code updated, links checked ~ no issues..
Engineering Manufacturers starting with 'Mo'.
Engineering Manufacturers starting with 'Nik'.
Engineering Manufacturers starting with 'Oo'.
Engineering Manufacturers starting with 'P'. html code updated, links checked ~ One bad link..
Engineering Manufacturers starting with 'Po'.
Engineering Manufacturers starting with 'Ram'.
Engineering Manufacturers starting with 'Ren'.
Engineering Manufacturers starting with 'Sen'.
Engineering Manufacturers starting with 'Sig'.
Engineering Manufacturers starting with 'Sk'. html code updated, links checked ~ One bad link..
Engineering Manufacturers starting with 'Sp'.
Engineering Manufacturers starting with 'Tb'. html code updated, links checked ~ One bad link..
Engineering Manufacturers starting with 'Th'.
Engineering Manufacturers starting with 'Us'.
Engineering Manufacturers starting with 'V'. html code updated, links checked ~ no issues..
Engineering Manufacturers starting with 'Ve'. html code updated, links checked ~ no issues..
Engineering Manufacturers starting with 'Vi'. html code updated, links checked ~ no issues..
Engineering Manufacturers starting with 'Vm'. html code updated, links checked ~ no issues..
Engineering Manufacturers starting with 'Wi'. html code updated, links checked ~ no issues..
Engineering Manufacturers starting with 'Z'. html code updated, links checked ~ no issues..

Wow, 47 pages with a Google page Rank issue ~ that's not good. But what is the problem with the pages?

I did notice that the entire section declares xhtml 'strict' coding, so I updated a few to 'transitional' coding today. The pages will validate declaring 'transitional' coding, but that can't be the issue or they would all have a zero page rank.

Any non '.com' web site link has a "rel = nofollow" in the link so even if the link were bad Goggle would ignore it. The 'rel=no follow' must be on 20% of the links, making them save regardless.

I'm running Xenu tonight to check the site for bad links, but that program will not indicate if some other site has taken over an address ~ so I'll have to hand check each link to insure the page opens to the site listed. Xenu reports 8 bad links (0.13%), with 5937 good url's.

I hand checked a few pages, see the text above, but I don't see any issues. I don't mind so much about losing the page rank, but I would like to have the data searchable. I could be missing a number of visitors because the page are in Google's supplemental listing.

Promote your site on the DMOZ data Base

I requested that serialphy be included into the DMOZ Directory [Open Directory Project]. Years ago it was really important to be listed in DMOZ, which is what Google built its directory from. These days it hard to even find a link to the Google directory, it's all about just using the search bar now.

But because the DMOZ directory is free to down load, any one can build there own web directory. Which means that your site listing could end up in a number of different search directories. So, I still recommend getting your site listed in the Open Directory. Not really sure how much directory are used any longer.....

interfacebus.com has been listed in DMOZ for years now, and serialphy should be large enough to be included, but I won't know for a number of weeks.

SEO and Hits from Image Referrals

When running your web site don't forget about what on-site images could do for your web page. The attached graphic shows the incoming visits to interfacebus.com from people using Google's image search.

The incoming hits are low, but they seem to be constant. Perhaps around 5 hits a-day in early 2006 to 20 a-day by the end of 2007. So not only text brings in site visitors, but an attached pic may also. Any way, incoming hits are good, and most graphics shown on interfacebus are located on another site to conserve server bandwidth.

The total visits due to image hits are 8,441 for the last two years. Yes, I know the site receives that amount of traffic in one day, but these are still new visits. I noted that the visits are increasing too. ~ Just to forget that people may also find your site via a posted image.....

Just another way to optimize your site for search engines, by letting them find your page with a posted image or graphic.

See also  SEO Tactics and Visits from Image Searches. 6/22/09
Chart; Image referrals per day.

Search Bar Usage

Looks the more and more people are using the Google search bar. I still find pages that don't have the search bar, and it doesn't seem to be related to when the page was last up-dated. So even if I updated a page the middle of last year, I may not have added a search bar.

I last blogged about this just the 9th of last month, again I up-date the search bar if the page already has one.