SEO, Image Alt text and filenames for images

Okay, SEO seems to be a hot topic, so I figured, I throw this out there. Why oh why does my dolphin change image files to numerical names? Why do they not prompt for alt text or at least put alt text as the tags. Is there a fix? Where do I start? My top keywords on the front page are search, categories, calendar and profile names. Really, ridiculous.I would not mind manually doing this, if someone can explain the process,  although I think there must be a easier way.

   Next I would like advice about the amount of links on the main page over 298 links. I only use the 20 photos and about 15 outlines on the page. I see  that each photo has 3 links, the photo itself, the photo name and the profile name of the person who posted the pic. That's, 60 links just for the photos, then the outlines have the pic, the pic name,the poster and the comment link so that is 60 more links. The rest of the 298 links are top menu, drop down menu and bottom menu links about 178 links. From what I understand, most search engines have a difficult time finding 100 links. I was wondering if I should hide the links on navigation menu that can be seen on the pages themselves. Like Search, Categories and Calendar, hmm the top keywords.

  I know that you can block google from crawling particular pages, can we stop google from picking up every profile link?

Sorry for the triple banger, figure I would ask while its on the top of my head.

Bump for the SEO guys to respond. Yoohoo

Okay, update, using the tools for SEO on title and keywords

Still, I would like to control image Alt tags. Home page looks good, like to work on the other pages. I also hide in the navigation page the links to Categories and Calender and Tags which reduced links by about 48 to 250. Only half way there. I was wondering if there was a generic way to hide profile names from the search engines. That would be another 35 links hid from the crawler. I maybe able to do that on Google only, by blocking them individually. Hopefully, I get some members that are not referrals but new blood.

OK, don't know where to start on this one.

Removing the menu links is not hiding them from search or crawls.

Your entire site is indexed if you have not written some type of NASA robot.txt file.

To me this is a waiting game, along with very fast index page load, with little content, BUT the content must change daily.

It is one of my tricks to let google know my content changes daily if not by the hour.

I'm not sharing the trick publicly.

And yes, as Prashank stated the <h1> tag did not make a big change over time, the changing content did.

You sent me a PM about FB, I'm as you know doing the same.

I'm spending small amounts by "boosting" the update status for the sites FB "page" with links to the site, this in turn has increased site activity more than expected and members ships. Not to count the "organic" page likes.

e.g. of paid status "boosts" on FB

$10 day one, one status "boost"

Paid Reach: 2,204

Page Likes: 7

Page Post Likes: 6

Page Photo Views: 4

Comments on Page Posts: 3

Page Post Shares: 1

$10 day two, one status "boost"

Paid Reach: 2,019

Page Likes: 14

Page Post Likes: 7

Page Post Shares: 3

Page Photo Views: 1

Comments on Page Posts: 1

Link Clicks: 1

$15 day three, one status "boost"

Paid Reach: 2,954

Page Photo Views: 178

Page Post Likes: 10

Page Likes: 10

Link Clicks: 3

Comments on Page Posts: 1

about a 70% increase in site traffic from what Quantcast results are telling me.

"Get Quantified" it helps find where you need to go.

[edit]

30%Direct Traffic  

24%Referring Websites

46%Search Engine Referrals

Well when testing the site using Freewebsubmission the titles of the drop down menus off the header were showing in the Key words. So Search, Categories, and tags were taking up keyword percentages. Once hid from members and non members from the navigation menu, they disappeared from keyword list. Hence 89%, I could get more and I need to reduce the amount of links on the pages. 248 links on the page ATM.

Real issue is the lack of Alt Tags on Pictures. Titles of the pictures are being picked up. That just does no justice in some cases. The pictures titles are not controlled, by the Admin, when they are inputted. We should be able to control the tags. Hate to think that if someone has 10k members putting 1 picture in per week, that sounds like a awful amount of work.

Another issue is that profile names are being picked up as keywords and links, most likely on every page. Not only do they have no meaning to the content of the site, they take up valuable link spots. Just saying. I don't have a solution that would not inhibit other members from going to other friends profiles.

Has anyone else looked at this in detail? Have a solution that they would like to share.

Okay, here is a deal.

Who would like to place This is Art on top of the Google search list whenever someone types, "art" from Australia? Send me a message with your price. The contract would also involve a deposit for the work and the complete payment once the results are produced. I will also need many references because I am have no time for fraudulent SEO experts.

Rob

I've been trying to work on my seo with a major problem that I have discovered. My site is ahealthy.me . The dolphin site is ahealthy.me/us . I had been running stats on the main page ahealthy.me  which really just forwards to the community page, /us

I didnt realize how that would effect seo but the mainpage has pretty bad stats while the comm site page is decent. What is the best way to handle that. Once the site is fully implemented where I am selling the supplement product(not for a while), there will be a real landing page, not a fowarding page,  that also has a link to the community page as well as other pages. So for the meantime I need to figure out a way to get the search engine to skip the main page & just look at the community pages.

Any ideas?

thanks

 Why worry about img info and the small things...

Worrying about why all the site is not indexed, you don't want that, this is response to the questions PM'ed to me.

We now have the sitemap to use in Dolphin 7.1.x, use it, submit it.

Use google Analytics, or, Quantcast, there is so much information to be learned just from these free services.

 You guys need to read my postings here about SEO; I've done all my own work and continue to number one on google for what my site is about. "gay men online," you very few keywords, be very specific for your page title. The title needs to be relevant to the index content, all other pages do not matter.

Some weeks I do fall off the top ten, this is a very simple fix for me, works everytime.

e.g. "Gay Men Online" is everywhere, well for those looking, I always keep that in the title.

When my listing falls to the second page, I word play the title.

e.g. "Find Gay Men Online," adding the word "find" and getting re-indexed, I'm back usually number one or two, simple.

I answer all questions without charging for more advice. 

Newton27 - 

I have been reading some of your other posts on seo. Even after analyzing you pages, I just cant see how your doing it.  Lemme know if there's something I'm not getting.... If I run http://gaymenonline.net/ thru freewebsub page analyizer, i see that the title is Video chat with gay men. and your keywords are: gaymen,online,gaychat,gay,men,gay profiles,gay chat,gay videos,porn,men,porn,dating,chat,pictures,avatar,news,events

Now if I look at your keyword density, gaymen doesnt show up alone. It does show up several time in phrases but still seems like low density levels, mostly less than 1%. Then if I go to your page & search the term it shows up 8 times. Many of those are from the spy section, shoutbox & disclaimer. I was thinking that keywords within content of the page are much more valuable.

Please know that I am trying to learn from what you have accomplished here.

thanks. 

I decided to test a search query of Newton's site. I searched on "gay men chat" without the quotes.  Gaymenonline.net showed up on the first page of the search results.  It was at the bottom of the page but it was on the first page.  Landing on the first page of a search query is important.  Studies have shown that users won't go too many pages deep in a search result; most, if I recall, won't go beyond three pages deep.

Google has a doc that outlines the steps for SEO.  Just follow that and add in Newton's suggestions and hopefully you will land on the first three pages of a search result.  Of course the narrower the scope of the search, the more likely you will land on the first three pages.  Searching on "gay men" had the first page about information on homosexuals more than anything else.

thanks GG, I don't know how to keep explaining. 

you guys, I have no secrets except what i have shared here..

simple