Do you think my homepage can still be optimized ?

[B-CITY]

Hi all !

Do you think my homepage can still be optimized ?

Here is the URL : http://www.proximeety.com

Of course I'm not only speaking about the home page but I also think about the pages structure, links, etc.

The fact is that my collegues and I are working hard on our SEO since 7 years and the result is that we still see our websites going down in the SERPS during months...

What are we doing wrong ? Our opponents don't seem to be more backlinked or more optimized... I personnaly think that there should be a big mistake on our site that penalize us and our SEO but I can't find what it is...

Can you help us ?

Thank you in advance !

[B-CITY]

Well... Of Course there are some world-class sites better ranked than us and that's fair.

But I think we're not at the right place... Proximeety is 7 years old... There are websites before us that are really younger, with very less backlinks, with far less content, far less members, etc...

That's why we really thnik that there must be a mistake on Proximeety which penalize us... Of course we'd like to hire a SEO in France, but it's hard to find the good person... We don't want a SEO who will explain us that we need to optimize our title or obvious things like that...

[RyanKent]

Could you tell me what command you use on google to find this problem on a website ?

I did not use any command on Google. I knew your site previously experienced a www vs non-www issue. Whenever an issue is reported as resolved, I confirm the fix through testing. I first tested your home page, then I chose a random link on your site.

I would suggest you configure your .htaccess in such a manner as to cause any root level changes to scale down into all the sub-directories.

how do you get your [external link] count ?

I am using the SEOmoz toolbar. In my experience the tool is accurate and dependable. Presently I see 32 external links on your home page.

Regarding your ranking, if you step back and look at your site do you feel it is a world-class site? Are there things you can be doing better? Can you improve the user experience or your site's usability?

Every month new competitors enter the market. Existing competitors make adjustments by hiring SEOs, earning links, redesign their websites, etc. Search engines also adjust their algorithms. If you do not actively improve your website on a regular basis, you can expect your rankings to steadily drop.

I understand you have made some code optimizations. That's good. Your home page shows only 2 validation errors. There are over 200 metrics Google evaluates to determine a website's position in search results. I would recommend hiring an SEO to help you define and reach your goals. Since your site is in French, ideally your SEO should understand French. Perhaps check the SEOmoz directory for a SEO who can meet your needs.

[B-CITY]

OK for the non-www issue.

The page you've found was in another subdir where we didn't change the .htaccess file... Now it's done.

Could you tell me what command you use on google to find this problem on a website ?

About the external links.

You tell me that you find 54 external links on our home page.

I only can find 26.

Of course I understand it's too many links but how do you get your count ?

About our competitors, our main google request is "site de rencontre" (without quotes of course) on google.fr

Proximeety is placed at the end of the second page.

One year ago, we were top 1 ont this search.

That's what we don't understand... we have made a lot of optimisations on our code and the SERPs are getting worse day after day...

[RyanKent]

Hello again.

I see you have fixed the non-www issue and your site now properly redirects to the www version of your URL for your home page. Unfortunately the original issue is still impacting the rest of your site. For example: http://proximeety.com/tchat/avantages-chat-gratuit.html is a valid URL on your site. The same page also appears in the www version. This problem needs to be fixed.

I also notice you have improved your linking ratio but there are still 54 external links from your home page. There is no magic number but I would want your external link count to be closer to 10.

In brief, there are many opportunities to improve your site. The initial two major issues which were shared in September have not been addressed yet. If you are committed to ranking better in SERPs, you need to immediately address those items.

In order to better compare your site to your competition, please share the search engine you are using (google.fr?) and a couple keywords where your competitor is outranking you. We can gladly take a look and share some reasons for these results.

[B-CITY]

Hi All !

I'm the original poster of this question a few monthes ago...

We made some optimizations on our linking strategy and other stuff but we're still going down in the SERPS

Can someone take a look at our home page www.proximeety.com and our website ?

It would be very appreciated if we could get some advices...

Of course we know that it's a real work we're asking so we are ready to pay for that if necessary...

One of our main problem is that we don't understand why our competitors appear at better places in SERPS.

[RyanKent]

I would suggest ending any link exchanges you have with other sites.

If you want to keep the links, that is your choice, but then you will understand why your competitors are outperforming you.

[B-CITY]

That's OK for the subdomain now..

I found how to do it before your answer.

About the external links... That's not easy because most of these links are links exchanges with other websites and I can't remove them like that

Of course, I can delete some links (about half I think) but I can't only leave a couple...

[RyanKent]

I am not a .htaccess expert but the below code should work:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^proximeety.com$
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.proximeety.com/$1 [R=301,L]

If you have managed hosting, you can simply ask your host to make the change. This is a very fast, basic change that is easy to make. If you have cPanel, you can use the Redirect tool as well.

To test the change, simply visit your website: http://www.proximeety.com. Notice the "www" appears before the domain name. Now go to the address bar and remove "www." and press enter. If the redirect is working properly, the "www." should re-appear in the address bar. You can test on the SEOmoz site to see how it should work.

For the links, I did not mean to suggest the ratio could be fixed by increasing the number of internal links. The issue is a normal site cannot support 82 external links on their home page. Try removing all external links then adding back only a couple.

[B-CITY]

Thank you !

First... I was already told about the problem months ago with proximeety.com and www.proximeety.com but I thought it was fixed

How did you see that ? What query do you use on Google ?

Here is what is in my .htaccess file and I thought it would fix it :

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^proximeety.com.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$  http://www.proximeety.com/$1 [R=301,L,QSA]

Could you tell me how to change it ?

For the links and the ratio between external and internal links, I know the problem and I think we'll organize our home page différently.

Of course I guess that if I add more internal links it won't be better... The ratio would be better but I my have too many links

[RyanKent]

I personnaly think that there should be a big mistake on our site that penalize us and our SEO but I can't find what it is...

You are correct. Your site is duplicated. It appears as both www.proximeety.com and proximeety.com. Both versions of your site have links as well, so your link juice is divided between your two sites. You need to decide which version of your site you prefer, the www or non-www version, and then redirect traffic to ensure only one version of your site is in use.

Also, your home page has 15 internal links and 82 external links. That profile is backwards. Most of your links should be internal with a few external links added as appropriate.

In short, your home page needs major SEO attention. I would advise hiring a SEO professional as it seems to need a complete overhaul. If you wish to perform the work yourself, the Beginner's Guide to SEO is a great place to start.