OpenCart pages not showing up in SERPS

I really need some help. I created a site at shop.ornaments.com. I have done a huge amount to make the site friendly towards search engines, but nothing seems to be making a difference. When I run a few general search phrases in this site, http://www.whatsmyserp.com/serpcheck.php, it doesn't come up for anything in the top 300 results. Even really specific searches.

The main domain, ornaments.com, doesn't rank well, but at least it ranks. I feel like there is some setting or something that is not right. I need to do something quick.

I appriceate any advice.

What have you done in webmaster tools? Is there a proper robots.txt file, sitemap file, url parameters, canonicals not only for products but category and manufacturer pages, page speed (doesn't have to be lightning fast but 8+ seconds is bad), www to non www redirect.

The page seems a bit slow (I didn't run a speed test) and your descriptions are pretty vague ('boys', 'baby', etc) that's going to make it tough to rank for. Not sure what terms you're after.

Also, HTTPS really isn't a ranking factor yet and I haven't bothered to switch any of my clients sites over. There hasn't been any sort of penalty by not switching.

DL

Sea-Wing_Designs wrote:it doesn't come up for anything in the top 300 results. Even really specific searches....

Don't take it personal, not beeing indexed. If you act like an IsellToo Burger Joint, at Corner 447St.W. / NowhereDrive, South End, you should not expect to be listed by Forbes.

You did NOT create a Search-friendly Site, you don't even use an 'informative' Title, no Keywords at all, a fully annonymous description, indifferent image descriptions, and, actually, all you have is a lot of links, leading 'away' from your Site, using very heavy loading time, filling up the Place with Scripting Stuff, and that's about it...

You wanted to know, and I assume, you don't expect compassion, but assistance, therefore, don't take it personal.
You live in a global World, you are competing against Millions. Under this Aspect, you cannot expect something, so SIMPLE as this, to be recognized, by Google and others, as a 'REAL' working commerial Site, if not even the first Page Header 'produces' one single usable, indexable, Result...

Others invest Millions to get on top, you even ignore, what actually comes for FREE. The BASICS. So, what you expect!?

Take it from a Friend, please...

Ernie
openshop.li

You did NOT create a Search-friendly Site, you don't even use an 'informative' Title, no Keywords at all, a fully annonymous description, indifferent image descriptions, and, actually, all you have is a lot of links, leading 'away' from your Site, using very heavy loading time, filling up the Place with Scripting Stuff, and that's about it...

Keywords have been obsolete in the eyes of Google for years. Hope you're not referring to Meta Keywords.

DL

Thank you for the pointers.
@Ernie, I do appriciate the straight talk. I see what you mean by no descriptive title on the home page, it is just "ornaments.com" and that is easily fixed, but all of the product pages have descriptive titles and meta descriptions. And yes, I have not bothered with Key Words because they are not usefull anymore.

I really don't know what you mean by "a lot of links, leading 'away' from your Site". There are very few links leading away from the site and those that are are in the footer to places like Authnet.

I am well aware that I cannot compare with the likes of Hallmark, Walmart and Macey's that fill the first few serps for a major search phrase like CHRISTMAS ORNAMENTS, but I would think that It would come up somewhere in the top 300 for a long tail search that matches aproduct exactly.

In Google Webmaster Tools, it says there are 602 pages indexed, if I search for site:shop.ornaments.com it comes up, but when I go to http://ismysiteindexed.com/domains/shop-ornaments-com/ it says that it is not indexed with google, bing or yahoo.

Why would the site not be indexed.

Actually, things have improved a bit over the last week. We now are coming up on page one for "Patriotic Personalized Ornament" and "baseball field ornament".

Again, Thank you for your insights.

Don't trust a site like 'ismysiteindexed.com' or anything similar. Your best bet is to always use site:domainname.com in any of the search engines and you'll get the truth. It can take a bit to see traffic go up again depending on how soon the bots come back around to crawl and how much time they spend going through your pages.

DL

cwswebdesign wrote:

Keywords have been obsolete in the eyes of Google for years. Hope you're not referring to Meta Keywords.DL

Ever Phrase should contain Keywords, Keywords are, at best, placed all over the place, exept for the fact, that Google is not (yet) the only Search-Engine in the World, many others still rely heavy on (good) Meta Keywords. Still, I had a new Site of mine indexed by Google on page one within 14 days, without doing anything to get 'em to know about the new Place, relying on a few Keywords and not much more. I therefore still believe, Google looks for everything, regardless of what or where it's placed. So, it can be of no harm to have those old Keyword Meta Stuff occupied by 'popular' Information. If it does not help, it does no harm either.

But what I meant, I was looking all over the place, nothing 'written' has been placed anywhere, 'pointing' to the 'Place', making it 'individual', 'different', 'exclusive', 'important', or whatever you want to call it, especially for a Search Engine.
I used a lot of empty gif's with different names, when I designed Websites or Perl Scripts, years ago, it was, then, the only way to keep Table Sections and Content 'exactly' similar sized, regardless of Browser used. Every One of those invisible space-setting Image carried an ALT/TITLE-Description, Images mostly contained detailled Product- or Site-ALT/TITLE-Information, all that, in combination with intelligent Product-Titles, Description, even intelligent Footer Links, not the same link-titles, found already in a trillion other shops, Content and so on..., it helped, I even got one up to PR4, without beeing aware of at first.

It's the Whole, what makes the difference, it cannot be done by installing a shop and get Google to index it within a few days, on Page ONE. It cannot be done by adding all that Garbage to a Site Front, slowing down Pageload and stealing the most eye-catching visual effects from the products to the EXIT-Options, called Like and/or whatever. Usually, if less one knows on, how to create a nice Front-Window, as more of all those shiny blinking exitlink-stuff is placed to, assumingly, make the place look MODERN and professional.

The Problem is, it's just not gonna work, this way. It's like in every Business, and it get's harder, on a daily bases. One should not try to compete with the Big Players, one should try to get a personal, individual looking Place. Describe in Detail, who you are, what you do, why you do it, this is Stuff to be indexed by Google, this is, what makes you different from all those uncounted others. It's not the variety of buttons, leading away from a Site, on PAGE ONE, place 'em, but somewhere else, it's enough, KEEP your Frontpage as YOUR Reference. For you only.

Ernie
openshop.li

Thanks DL. I appreciate the input. I am actually thinking the drop had something to do with changing to https. I hear what you say about it not being necessary yet, but at this point, I don't think it best to switch back.

Sea-Wing_Designs wrote:Thanks DL. I appreciate the input. I am actually thinking the drop had something to do with changing to https. I hear what you say about it not being necessary yet, but at this point, I don't think it best to switch back.

It depends on how long ago you did it and how much of it is indexed already.

DL

HI,

I have done a huge amount to make the site friendly towards search engine

Do you mean like naming your header image an incredibly unique: header2.jpg? Or, naming your logo web-logo.png? To be honest, those are going to do way more harm than good. Start with renaming your images, that would be a start, and then following what others are saying up here.

SEO sometimes takes a lot longer than you think. If it's not started right will take even longer. I suggest you get a good SEO course/software such as: WebCEO for starters.

Best of luck to you,
-Brett